IN WHICH I GO WEST
I reached my uncle's door next morning in time to sit down with the
family to breakfast. More than three years had intervened--almost
without mutation in that stationary household--since I had sat there
first, a young American freshman, bewildered among unfamiliar dainties
(Finnan haddock, kippered salmon, baps, and mutton-ham), and had wearied
my mind in vain to guess what should be under the tea-cosy. If there
were any change at all, it seemed that I had risen in the family esteem.
My father's death once fittingly referred to with a ceremonial
lengthening of Scots upper lips and wagging of the female head, the
party launched at once (God help me!) into the more cheerful topic of my
own successes. They had been so pleased to hear such good accounts of
me; I was quite a great man now; where was that beautiful statue of the
Genius of Something or other? "You haven't it here? Not here? Really?"
asks the sprightliest of my cousins, shaking curls at me; as though it
were likely I had brought it in the cab, or kept it concealed about my
person like a birthday surprise. In the bosom of this family,
unaccustomed to the tropical nonsense of the West, it became plain the
_Sunday Herald_ and poor blethering Pinkerton had been accepted for
their face. It is not possible to invent a circumstance that could have
more depressed me; and I am conscious that I behaved all through that
breakfast like a whipped schoolboy.
At length, the meal and family prayers being both happily over, I
requested the favour of an interview with Uncle Adam on "the state of my
affairs." At sound of this ominous expression the good man's face
conspicuously lengthened; and when my grandfather, having had the
proposition repeated to him (for he was hard of hearing), announced his
intention of being present at the interview, I could not but think that
Uncle Adam's sorrow kindled into momentary irritation. Nothing, however,
but the usual grim cordiality appeared upon the surface; and we all
three passed ceremoniously to the adjoining library, a gloomy theatre
for a depressing piece of business. My grandfather charged a clay pipe,
and sat tremulously smoking in a corner of the fireless chimney; behind
him, although the morning was both chill and dark, the window was partly
open and the blind partly down: I cannot depict what an air he had of
being out of place, like a man shipwrecked there. Uncle Adam had his
station at the business-table in the midst. Valuable rows of books
looked down upon the place of torture; and I could hear sparrows
chirping in the garden, and my sprightly cousin already banging the
piano and pouring forth an acid stream of song from the drawing-room
overhead.
It was in these circumstances that, with all brevity of speech and a
certain boyish sullenness of manner, looking the while upon the floor, I
informed my relatives of my financial situation: the amount I owed
Pinkerton; the hopelessness of any maintenance from sculpture; the
career offered me in the States; and how, before becoming more beholden
to a stranger, I had judged it right to lay the case before my family.
"I am only sorry you did not come to me at first," said Uncle Adam. "I
take the liberty to say it would have been more decent."
"I think so too, Uncle Adam," I replied; "but you must bear in mind I
was ignorant in what light you might regard my application."
"I hope I would never turn my back on my own flesh and blood," he
returned with emphasis; but, to my anxious ear, with more of temper than
affection. "I could never forget you were my sister's son. I regard this
as a manifest duty. I have no choice but to accept the entire
responsibility of the position you have made."
I did not know what else to do but murmur "Thank you."
"Yes," he pursued, "and there is something providential in the
circumstance that you come at the right time. In my old firm there is a
vacancy; they call themselves Italian Warehousemen now," he continued,
regarding me with a twinkle of humour; "so you may think yourself in
luck: we were only grocers in my day. I shall place you there
to-morrow."
"Stop a moment, Uncle Adam," I broke in. "This is not at all what I am
asking. I ask you to pay Pinkerton, who is a poor man. I ask you to
clear my feet of debt, not to arrange my life or any part of it."
"If I wished to be harsh, I might remind you that beggars cannot be
choosers," said my uncle; "and as to managing your life, you have tried
your own way already, and you see what you have made of it. You must now
accept the guidance of those older and (whatever you may think of it)
wiser than yourself. All these schemes of your friend (of whom I know
nothing, by the by) and talk of openings in the West, I simply
disregard. I have no idea whatever of your going troking across a
continent on a wild-goose chase. In this situation, which I am
fortunately able to place at your disposal, and which many a
well-conducted young man would be glad to jump at, you will receive, to
begin with, eighteen shillings a week."
"Eighteen shillings a week!" I cried. "Why, my poor friend gave me more
than that for nothing!"
"And I think it is this very friend you are now trying to repay?"
observed my uncle, with an air of one advancing a strong argument.
"Aadam," said my grandfather.
"I'm vexed you should be present at this business," quoth Uncle Adam,
swinging rather obsequiously towards the stonemason; "but I must remind
you it is of your own seeking."
"Aadam!" repeated the old man.
"Well, sir, I am listening," says my uncle.
My grandfather took a puff or two in silence: and then, "Ye're makin' an
awfu' poor appearance, Aadam," said he.
My uncle visibly reared at the affront. "I'm sorry you should think so,"
said he, "and still more sorry you should say so before present
company."
"A believe that; A ken that, Aadam," returned old Loudon drily; "and the
curiis thing is, I'm no very carin'.--See here, ma man," he continued,
addressing himself to me. "A'm your grandfaither, amn't I not? Never you
mind what Aadam says. A'll see justice dune ye. A'm rich."
"Father," said Uncle Adam, "I would like one word with you in private."
I rose to go.
"Set down upon your hinderlands," cried my grandfather, almost savagely.
"If Aadam has anything to say, let him say it. It's me that has the
money here; and, by Gravy! I'm goin' to be obeyed."
Upon this scurvy encouragement, it appeared that my uncle had no remark
to offer: twice challenged to "speak out and be done with it," he twice
sullenly declined; and I may mention that about this period of the
engagement I began to be sorry for him.
"See here, then, Jeannie's yin!" resumed my grandfather. "A'm goin' to
give ye a set-off. Your mither was always my fav'rite, for A never could
agree with Aadam. A like ye fine yoursel'; there's nae noansense aboot
ye; ye've a fine nayteral idee of builder's work; ye've been to France,
where, they tell me, they're grand at the stuccy. A splendid thing for
ceilin's, the stuccy! and it's a vailyable disguise, too; A don't
believe there's a builder in Scotland has used more stuccy than me. But,
as A was sayin', if ye'll follie that trade, with the capital that A'm
goin' to give ye, ye may live yet to be as rich as mysel'. Ye see, ye
would have always had a share of it when A was gone; it appears ye're
needin' it now; well, ye'll get the less, as is only just and proper."
Uncle Adam cleared his throat. "This is very handsome, father," said he;
"and I am sure Loudon feels it so. Very handsome, and, as you say, very
just; but will you allow me to say that it had better, perhaps, be put
in black and white?"
The enmity always smouldering between the two men, at this ill-judged
interruption almost burst in flame. The stonemason turned upon his
offspring, his long upper lip pulled down for all the world like a
monkey's. He stared a while in virulent silence; and then "Get Gregg!"
said he.
The effect of these words was very visible. "He will be gone to his
office," stammered my uncle.
"Get Gregg!" repeated my grandfather.
"I tell you, he will be gone to his office," reiterated Adam.
"And I tell ye, he's takin' his smoke," retorted the old man.
"Very well, then," cried my uncle, getting to his feet with some
alacrity, as upon a sudden change of thought, "I will get him myself."
"Ye will not!" cried my grandfather. "Ye will sit there upon your
hinderland."
"Then how the devil am I to get him?" my uncle broke forth, with not
unnatural petulance.
My grandfather (having no possible answer) grinned at his son with the
malice of a schoolboy; then he rang the bell.
"Take the garden key," said Uncle Adam to the servant; "go over to the
garden, and if Mr. Gregg the lawyer is there (he generally sits under
the red hawthorn), give him old Mr. Loudon's compliments, and will he
step in here for a moment?"
"Mr. Gregg the lawyer!" At once I understood (what had been puzzling me)
the significance of my grandfather and the alarm of my poor uncle: the
stonemason's will, it was supposed, hung trembling in the balance.
"Look here, grandfather," I said, "I didn't want any of this. All I
wanted was a loan of, say, two hundred pounds. I can take care of
myself; I have prospects and opportunities, good friends in the
States--"
The old man waved me down. "It's me that speaks here," he said curtly;
and we waited the coming of the lawyer in a triple silence. He appeared
at last, the maid ushering him in--a spectacled, dry, but not
ungenial-looking man.
"Here, Gregg," cried my grandfather, "just a question: What has Aadam
got to do with my will?"
"I'm afraid I don't quite understand," said the lawyer, staring.
"What has he got to do with it?" repeated the old man, smiting with his
fist upon the arm of his chair. "Is my money mine's, or is it Aadam's?
Can Aadam interfere?"
"O, I see," said Mr. Gregg. "Certainly not. On the marriage of both of
your children a certain sum was paid down and accepted in full of
legitim. You have surely not forgotten the circumstance, Mr. Loudon?"
"So that, if I like," concluded my grandfather, hammering out his words,
"I can leave every doit I die possessed of to the Great
Magunn?"--meaning probably the Great Mogul.
"No doubt of it," replied Gregg, with a shadow of a smile.
"Ye hear that, Aadam?" asked my grandfather.
"I may be allowed to say I had no need to hear it," said my uncle.
"Very well," says my grandfather. "You and Jeannie's yin can go for a
bit walk. Me and Gregg has business."
When once I was in the hall alone with Uncle Adam, I turned to him sick
at heart. "Uncle Adam," I said, "you can understand, better than I can
say, how very painful all this is to me."
"Yes, I am sorry you have seen your grandfather in so unamiable a
light," replied this extraordinary man. "You shouldn't allow it to
affect your mind, though. He has sterling qualities, quite an
extraordinary character; and I have no fear but he means to behave
handsomely to you."
His composure was beyond my imitation: the house could not contain me,
nor could I even promise to return to it: in concession to which
weakness, it was agreed that I should call in about an hour at the
office of the lawyer, whom (as he left the library) Uncle Adam should
waylay and inform of the arrangement. I suppose there was never a more
topsy-turvy situation; you would have thought it was I who had suffered
some rebuff, and that iron-sided Adam was a generous conqueror who
scorned to take advantage.
It was plain enough that I was to be endowed: to what extent and upon
what conditions I was now left for an hour to meditate in the wide and
solitary thoroughfares of the new town, taking counsel with
street-corner statues of George IV. and William Pitt, improving my mind
with the pictures in the window of a music-shop, and renewing my
acquaintance with Edinburgh east wind. By the end of the hour I made my
way to Mr. Gregg's office, where I was placed, with a few appropriate
words, in possession of a cheque for two thousand pounds and a small
parcel of architectural works.
"Mr. Loudon bids me add," continued the lawyer, consulting a little
sheet of notes, "that although these volumes are very valuable to the
practical builder, you must be careful not to lose originality. He tells
you also not to be 'hadden doun'--his own expression--by the theory of
strains, and that Portland cement, properly sanded, will go a long way."
I smiled, and remarked that I supposed it would.
"I once lived in one of my excellent client's houses," observed the
lawyer; "and I was tempted, in that case, to think it had gone far
enough."
"Under these circumstances, sir," said I, "you will be rather relieved
to hear that I have no intention of becoming a builder."
At this he fairly laughed; and, the ice being broken, I was able to
consult him as to my conduct. He insisted I must return to the house--at
least, for luncheon, and one of my walks with Mr. Loudon. "For the
evening I will furnish you with an excuse, if you please," said he, "by
asking you to a bachelor dinner with myself. But the luncheon and the
walk are unavoidable. He is an old man, and, I believe, really fond of
you; he would naturally feel aggrieved if there were any appearance of
avoiding him; and as for Mr. Adam, do you know, I think your delicacy
out of place.... And now, Mr. Dodd, what are you to do with this money?"
Ay, there was the question. With two thousand pounds--fifty thousand
francs--I might return to Paris and the arts, and be a prince and
millionaire in that thrifty Latin Quarter. I think I had the grace, with
one corner of my mind, to be glad that I had sent the London letter: I
know very well that, with the rest and worst of me, I repented bitterly
of that precipitate act. On one point, however, my whole multiplex
estate of man was unanimous: the letter being gone, there was no help
but I must follow. The money was accordingly divided in two unequal
shares: for the first, Mr. Gregg got me a bill in the name of Dijon to
meet my liabilities in Paris; for the second, as I had already cash in
hand for the expenses of, my journey, he supplied me with drafts on San
Francisco.
The rest of my business in Edinburgh, not to dwell on a very agreeable
dinner with the lawyer or the horrors of the family luncheon, took the
form of an excursion with the stonemason, who led me this time to no
suburb or work of his old hands, but, with an impulse both natural and
pretty, to that more enduring home which he had chosen for his clay. It
was in a cemetery, by some strange chance immured within the bulwarks of
a prison; standing, besides, on the margin of a cliff, crowded with
elderly stone memorials, and green with turf and ivy. The east wind
(which I thought too harsh for the old man) continually shook the
boughs, and the thin sun of a Scottish summer drew their dancing
shadows.
"I wanted ye to see the place," said he. "Yon's the stane. _Euphemia
Ross_: that was my goodwife, your grandmither--hoots! I'm wrong; that
was my first yin; I had no bairns by her;--yours is the second, _Mary
Murray, Born_ 1819, _Died_ 1850; that's her--a fine, plain, decent sort
of a creature, tak' her a'thegether. _Alexander Loudon, Born Seventeen
Ninety-Twa, Died_--and then a hole in the ballant: that's me.
Alexander's my name. They ca'd me Ecky when I was a boy. Eh, Ecky! ye're
an awfu' auld man!"
I had a second and sadder experience of graveyards at my next
alighting-place, the city of Muskegon, now rendered conspicuous by the
dome of the new capitol encaged in scaffolding. It was late in the
afternoon when I arrived, and raining; and as I walked in great streets,
of the very name of which I was quite ignorant--double, treble, and
quadruple lines of horse-cars jingling by--hundred-fold wires of
telegraph and telephone matting heaven above my head--huge, staring
houses, garish and gloomy, flanking me from either hand--the thought of
the Rue Racine, ay, and of the cabman's eating-house, brought tears to
my eyes. The whole monotonous Babel had grown--or, I should rather say,
swelled--with such a leap since my departure that I must continually
inquire my way; and the very cemetery was brand-new. Death, however, had
been active; the graves were already numerous, and I must pick my way in
the rain among the tawdry sepulchres of millionaires, and past the plain
black crosses of Hungarian labourers, till chance or instinct led me to
the place that was my father's. The stone had been erected (I knew
already) "by admiring friends"; I could now judge their taste in
monuments. Their taste in literature, methought, I could imagine, and I
refrained from drawing near enough to read the terms of the inscription.
But the name was in larger letters and stared at me--_James K. Dodd_.
"What a singular thing is a name!" I thought; "how it clings to a man,
and continually misrepresents, and then survives him!" And it flashed
across my mind, with a mixture of regret and bitter mirth, that I had
never known, and now probably never should know, what the _K_ had
represented. King, Kilter, Kay, Kaiser, I went, running over names at
random, and then stumbled, with ludicrous misspelling, on Kornelius, and
had nearly laughed aloud. I have never been more childish; I suppose
(although the deeper voices of my nature seemed all dumb) because I have
never been more moved. And at this last incongruous antic of my nerves I
was seized with a panic of remorse, and fled the cemetery.
Scarce less funereal was the rest of my experience in Muskegon, where,
nevertheless, I lingered, visiting my father's circle, for some days. It
was in piety to him I lingered; and I might have spared myself the pain.
His memory was already quite gone out. For his sake, indeed, I was made
welcome; and for mine the conversation rolled a while with laborious
effort on the virtues of the deceased. His former comrades dwelt, in my
company, upon his business talents or his generosity for public
purposes: when my back was turned, they remembered him no more. My
father had loved me; I had left him alone, to live and die among the
indifferent; now I returned to find him dead and buried and forgotten.
Unavailing penitence translated itself in my thoughts to fresh resolve.
There was another poor soul who loved me--Pinkerton. I must not be
guilty twice of the same error.
A week perhaps had been thus wasted, nor had I prepared my friend for
the delay. Accordingly, when I had changed trains at Council Bluffs, I
was aware of a man appearing at the end of the car with a telegram in
his hand and inquiring whether there were any one aboard "of the name of
_London_ Dodd?" I thought the name near enough, claimed the despatch,
and found it was from Pinkerton: "What day do you arrive? Awfully
important." I sent him an answer, giving day and hour, and at Ogden
found a fresh despatch awaiting me: "That will do. Unspeakable relief.
Meet you at Sacramento." In Paris days I had a private name for
Pinkerton: "The Irrepressible" was what I had called him in hours of
bitterness, and the name rose once more on my lips. What mischief was he
up to now? What new bowl was my benignant monster brewing for his
Frankenstein? In what new imbroglio should I alight on the Pacific
coast? My trust in the man was entire, and my distrust perfect. I knew
he would never mean amiss; but I was convinced he would almost never (in
my sense) do aright.
I suppose these vague anticipations added a shade of gloom to that
already gloomy place of travel: Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, scowled
in my face at least, and seemed to point me back again to that other
native land of mine, the Latin Quarter. But when the Sierras had been
climbed, and the train, after so long beating and panting, stretched
itself upon the downward track--when I beheld that vast extent of
prosperous country rolling seaward from the woods and the blue
mountains, that illimitable spread of rippling corn, the trees growing
and blowing in the merry weather, the country boys thronging aboard the
train with figs and peaches, and the conductors, and the very darky
stewards, visibly exulting in the change--up went my soul like a
balloon; Care fell from his perch upon my shoulders; and when I spied my
Pinkerton among the crowd at Sacramento, I thought of nothing but to
shout and wave for him, and grasp him by the hand, like what he was--my
dearest friend.
"O, Loudon!" he cried; "man, how I've pined for you! And you haven't
come an hour too soon. You're known here and waited for; I've been
booming you already: you're billed for a lecture to-morrow night:
'Student Life in Paris, Grave and Gay': twelve hundred places booked at
the last stock! Tut, man, you're looking thin! Here, try a drop of
this." And he produced a case bottle, staringly labelled PINKERTON'S
THIRTEEN STAR GOLDEN STATE BRANDY, WARRANTED ENTIRE.
"God bless me!" said I, gasping and winking after my first plunge into
this fiery fluid; "and what does 'Warranted Entire' mean?"
"Why, Loudon, you ought to know that!" cried Pinkerton. "It's real,
copper-bottomed English; you see it on all the old-time wayside
hostelries over there."
"But if I'm not mistaken, it means something Warranted Entirely
different," said I, "and applies to the public-house, and not the
beverages sold."
"It's very possible," said Jim, quite unabashed. "It's effective,
anyway; and I can tell you, sir, it has boomed that spirit: it goes now
by the gross of cases. By the way, I hope you won't mind; I've got your
portrait all over San Francisco for the lecture, enlarged from that
carte de visite: 'H. Loudon Dodd, the Americo-Parisienne Sculptor.'
Here's a proof of the small handbills; the posters are the same, only in
red and blue, and the letters fourteen by one."
I looked at the handbill, and my head turned. What was the use of words?
why seek to explain to Pinkerton the knotted horrors of
"Americo-Parisienne"? He took an early occasion to point it out as
"rather a good phrase; gives the two sides at a glance: I wanted the
lecture written up to that." Even after we had reached San Francisco,
and at the actual physical shock of my own effigy placarded on the
streets I had broken forth in petulant words, he never comprehended in
the least the ground of my aversion.
"If I had only known you disliked red lettering!" was as high as he
could rise. "You are perfectly right: a clear-cut black is preferable,
and shows a great deal further. The only thing that pains me is the
portrait: I own I thought that a success. I'm dreadfully and truly
sorry, my dear fellow: I see now it's not what you had a right to
expect; but I did it, Loudon, for the best; and the press is all
delighted."
At the moment, sweeping through green tule swamps, I fell direct on the
essential. "But Pinkerton," I cried, "this lecture is the maddest of
your madnesses. How can I prepare a lecture in thirty hours?"
"All done, Loudon!" he exclaimed in triumph. "All ready. Trust me to
pull a piece of business through. You'll find it all type-written in my
desk at home. I put the best talent of San Francisco on the job: Harry
Miller, the brightest pressman in the city."
And so he rattled on, beyond reach of my modest protestations, blurting
out his complicated interests, crying up his new acquaintances, and ever
and again hungering to introduce me to some "whole-souled, grand fellow,
as sharp as a needle," from whom, and the very thought of whom, my
spirit shrank instinctively.
Well, I was in for it--in for Pinkerton, in for the portrait, in for the
type-written lecture. One promise I extorted--that I was never again to
be committed in ignorance. Even for that, when I saw how its extortion
puzzled and depressed the Irrepressible, my soul repented me, and in all
else I suffered myself to be led uncomplaining at his chariot-wheels.
The Irrepressible, did I say? The Irresistible were nigher truth.
But the time to have seen me was when I sat down to Harry Miller's
lecture. He was a facetious dog, this Harry Miller. He had a gallant way
of skirting the indecent, which in my case produced physical nausea, and
he could be sentimental and even melodramatic about grisettes and
starving genius. I found he had enjoyed the benefit of my correspondence
with Pinkerton; adventures of my own were here and there horridly
misrepresented, sentiments of my own echoed and exaggerated till I
blushed to recognise them. I will do Harry Miller justice: he must have
had a kind of talent, almost of genius; all attempts to lower his tone
proving fruitless, and the Harry-Millerism ineradicable. Nay, the
monster had a certain key of style, or want of style, so that certain
milder passages, which I sought to introduce, discorded horribly and
impoverished, if that were possible, the general effect.
By an early hour of the numbered evening I might have been observed at
the sign of the "Poodle Dog" dining with my agent--so Pinkerton
delighted to describe himself. Thence, like an ox to the slaughter, he
led me to the hall, where I stood presently alone, confronting assembled
San Francisco, with no better allies than a table, a glass of water, and
a mass of manuscript and typework, representing Harry Miller and myself.
I read the lecture: for I had lacked both time and will to get the trash
by heart--read it hurriedly, humbly, and with visible shame. Now and
then I would catch in the auditorium an eye of some intelligence, now
and then in the manuscript would stumble on a richer vein of Harry
Miller, and my heart would fail me, and I gabbled. The audience yawned,
it stirred uneasily, it muttered, grumbled, and broke forth at last in
articulate cries of "Speak up!" and "Nobody can hear!" I took to
skipping, and, being extremely ill-acquainted with the country, almost
invariably cut in again in the unintelligible midst of some new topic.
What struck me as extremely ominous, these misfortunes were allowed to
pass without a laugh. Indeed, I was beginning to fear the worst, and
even personal indignity, when all at once the humour of the thing broke
upon me strongly. I could have laughed aloud, and, being again summoned
to speak up, I faced my patrons for the first time with a smile. "Very
well," I said, "I will try, though I don't suppose anybody wants to
hear, and I can't see why anybody should." Audience and lecturer laughed
together till the tears ran down, vociferous and repeated applause
hailed my impromptu sally. Another hit which I made but a little after,
as I turned three pages of the copy--"You see, I am leaving out as much
as I possibly can"--increased the esteem with which my patrons had begun
to regard me; and when I left the stage at last, my departing form was
cheered with laughter, stamping, shouting, and the waving of hats.
Pinkerton was in the waiting-room, feverishly jotting in his
pocket-book. As he saw me enter, he sprang up, and I declare the tears
were trickling on his cheeks.
"My dear boy," he cried, "I can never forgive myself, and you can never
forgive me. Never mind, I did it for the best. And how nobly you clung
on! I dreaded we should have had to return the money at the doors."
"It would have been more honest if we had," said I.
The pressmen followed me, Harry Miller in the front ranks; and I was
amazed to find them, on the whole, a pleasant set of lads, probably more
sinned against than sinning, and even Harry Miller apparently a
gentleman. I had in oysters and champagne--for the receipts were
excellent--and, being in a high state of nervous tension, kept the table
in a roar. Indeed, I was never in my life so well inspired as when I
described my vigil over Harry Miller's literature or the series of my
emotions as I faced the audience. The lads vowed I was the soul of good
company and the prince of lecturers; and--so wonderful an institution
is the popular press--if you had seen the notices next day in all the
papers you must have supposed my evening's entertainment an unqualified
success.
I was in excellent spirits when I returned home that night, but the
miserable Pinkerton sorrowed for us both.
"O, Loudon," he said, "I shall never forgive myself. When I saw you
didn't catch on to the idea of the lecture, I should have given it
myself!"