"Little wide-mouthed Cupidon, how you gaze! Also, by the way, how
you smell!"
"It's my corduroys," said I.
"Then I discommend your corduroys. But I approve your laugh.
Laugh again--only at the right matter: laugh at this--"
And, opening his book again, he read a long passage as I walked
beside him; but I could make neither head nor tail of it.
"That is from the 'Sentimental Journey,' by Laurence Sterne, the most
beautiful of your English wits. Ah, he is more than French!
Laugh at it."
It was rather hard to laugh thus to order; but suddenly he set me the
example, showing two rows of very white teeth, and fetching from his
hollow chest a sound of mirth so incongruous with the whole aspect of
the man, that I began to grin too.
"That's right; but be louder. Make the sounds that you made just
now--"
He broke off sharply, being seized with an ugly fit of coughing, that
forced him to halt and lean on his staff for a while. When he
recovered we walked on together after the geese, he talking all the
way in high-flown sentences that were Greek to me, and I stealing a
look every now and then at his olive face, and half inclined to take
to my heels and run.
We came at length to the ridge where the road dives suddenly into
Tregarrick. The town lies along a narrow vale, and looking down, we
saw flags waving along the street and much smoke curling from the
chimneys, and heard the church-bells, the big drum, and the confused
mutterings and hubbub of the fair. The sun--for the morning was
still fresh--did not yet pierce to the bottom of the valley, but fell
on the hillside opposite, where cottage-gardens in parallel strips
climbed up from the town to the moorland beyond.
"What is that?" asked the goose-driver, touching my arm and pointing
to a dazzling spot on the slope opposite.
"That's the sun on the windows of Gardener Tonken's glass-house."
"Eh?--does he live there?"
"He's dead, and the garden's 'to let;' you can just see the board
from here. But he didn't live there, of course. People don't live
in glass-houses; only plants."
"That's a pity, little boy, for their souls' sakes. It reminds me of
a story--by the way, do you know Latin? No? Well, listen to this:--
if I can sell my geese to-day, perhaps I will hire that glass-house,
and you shall come there on half holidays, and learn Latin. Now run
ahead and spend your money."
I was glad to escape, and in the bustle of the fair quickly forgot my
friend. But late in the afternoon, as I had my eyes glued to a
peep-show, I heard a voice behind me cry "Little boy!" and turning,
saw him again. He was without his geese.
"I have sold them," he said, "for 5 pounds; and I have taken the
glass-house. The rent is only 3 pounds a year, and I shan't live
longer, so that leaves me money to buy books. I shall feed on the
snails in the garden, making soup of them, for there is a beautiful
stove in the glass-house. When is your next half-holiday?"
"On Saturday."
"Very well. I am going away to buy books; but I shall be back by
Saturday, and then you are to come and learn Latin."
It may have been fear or curiosity, certainly it was no desire for
learning, that took me to Gardener Tonken's glass-house next Saturday
afternoon. The goose-driver was there to welcome me.
"Ah, wide-mouth," he cried; "I knew you would be here. Come and see
my library."
He showed me a pile of dusty, tattered volumes, arranged on an old
flower-stand.
"See," said he, "no sorrowful books, only Aristophanes and Lucian,
Horace, Rabelais, Moliere, Voltaire's novels, 'Gil Blas,'
'Don Quixote,' Fielding, a play or two of Shakespeare, a volume or so
of Swift, Prior's Poems, and Sterne--that divine Sterne! And a Latin
Grammar and Virgil for you, little boy. First, eat some snails."
But this I would not. So he pulled out two three-legged stools, and
very soon I was trying to fix my wandering wits and decline _mensa_.
After this I came on every half-holiday for nearly a year. Of course
the tenant of the glass-house was a nine days' wonder in the town.
A crowd of boys and even many grown men and women would assemble and
stare into the glass-house while we worked; but Fortunio (he gave no
other name) seemed rather to like it than not. Only when some
wiseacres approached my parents with hints that my studies with a
ragged man who lived on snails and garden-stuff were uncommonly like
traffic with the devil, Fortunio, hearing the matter, walked over one
morning to our home and had an interview with my mother. I don't
know what was said; but I know that afterwards no resistance was made
to my visits to the glass-house.
They came to an end in the saddest and most natural way.
One September afternoon I sat construing to Fortunio out of the first
book of Virgil's "Aeneid"--so far was I advanced; and coming to the
passage--
"Tum breviter Dido, vultum demissa, profatur". . .
I had just rendered _vultum demissa_ "with downcast eyes," when the
book was snatched from me and hurled to the far end of the
glass-house. Looking up, I saw Fortunio in a transport of passion.
"Fool--little fool! Will you be like all the commentators? Will you
forget what Virgil has said and put your own nonsense into his golden
mouth?"
He stepped across, picked up the book, found the passage, and then
turning back a page or so, read out--
"Saepta armis _solioque alte subnixa_ resedit."
"_Alte! Alte!_" he screamed: "Dido sat on high: Aeneas stood at the
foot of her throne. Listen to this:--'Then Dido, bending down her
gaze . . . '"
He went on translating. A rapture took him, and the sun beat in
through the glass roof, and lit up his eyes. He was transfigured;
his voice swelled and sank with passion, swelled again, and then, at
the words--
"Quae te tam laeta tulerunt
Saecula? Qui tanti talem genuere parentes?"
It broke, the Virgil dropped from his hand, and sinking down on his
stool he broke into a wild fit of sobbing.
"Oh, why did I read it? Why did I read this sorrowful book?"
And then checking his sobs, he put a handkerchief to his mouth, took
it away, and looked up at me with dry eyes.
"Go away, little one, Don't come again: I am going to die very soon
now."
I stole out, awed and silent, and went home. But the picture of him
kept me awake that night, and early in the morning I dressed and ran
off to the glass-house.
He was still sitting as I had left him.
"Why have you come?" he asked, harshly. "I have been coughing.
I am going to die."
"Then I'll fetch a doctor."
"No."
"A clergyman?"
"No."
But I ran for the doctor.
Fortunio lived on for a week after this, and at length consented to
see a clergyman. I brought the vicar, and was told to leave them
alone together and come back in an hour's time.
When I returned, Fortunio was stretched quietly on the rough bed we
had found for him, and the Vicar, who knelt beside it, was speaking
softly in his ear.