IT was a pretty, quaint farmhouse, such as might well go with two or
three hundred acres of tolerably good land, tolerably well farmed by an
active old-fashioned tenant, who, though he did not use mowing-machines
nor steam-ploughs nor dabble in chemical experiments, still brought
an adequate capital to his land and made the capital yield a very fair
return of interest. The supper was laid out in a good-sized though
low-pitched parlour with a glazed door, now wide open, as were all the
latticed windows, looking into a small garden, rich in those straggling
old English flowers which are nowadays banished from gardens more
pretentious and; infinitely less fragrant. At one corner was an arbour
covered with honeysuckle, and opposite to it a row of beehives. The room
itself had an air of comfort, and that sort of elegance which indicates
the presiding genius of feminine taste. There were shelves suspended
to the wall by blue ribbons, and filled with small books neatly bound;
there were flower-pots in all the window-sills; there was a small
cottage piano; the walls were graced partly with engraved portraits of
county magnates and prize oxen; partly with samplers in worsted-work,
comprising verses of moral character and the names and birthdays of
the farmer’s grandmother, mother, wife, and daughters. Over the
chimney-piece was a small mirror, and above that the trophy of a fox’s
brush; while niched into an angle in the room was a glazed cupboard,
rich with specimens of old china, Indian and English.
The party consisted of the farmer, his wife, three buxom daughters, and
a pale-faced slender lad of about twenty, the only son, who did not take
willingly to farming: he had been educated at a superior grammar school,
and had high notions about the March of Intellect and the Progress of
the Age.
Kenelm, though among the gravest of mortals, was one of the least shy.
In fact shyness is the usual symptom of a keen _amour propre_; and of
that quality the youthful Chillingly scarcely possessed more than did
the three Fishes of his hereditary scutcheon. He felt himself perfectly
at home with his entertainers; taking care, however, that his attentions
were so equally divided between the three daughters as to prevent all
suspicion of a particular preference. “There is safety in numbers,”
thought he, “especially in odd numbers. The three Graces never married,
neither did the nine Muses.”
“I presume, young ladies, that you are fond of music,” said Kenelm,
glancing at the piano.
“Yes, I love it dearly,” said the eldest girl, speaking for the others.
Quoth the farmer, as he heaped the stranger’s plate with boiled beef and
carrots, “Things are not what they were when I was a boy; then it was
only great tenant-farmers who had their girls taught the piano, and
sent their boys to a good school. Now we small folks are for helping our
children a step or two higher than our own place on the ladder.”
“The schoolmaster is abroad,” said the son, with the emphasis of a sage
adding an original aphorism to the stores of philosophy.
“There is, no doubt, a greater equality of culture than there was in
the last generation,” said Kenelm. “People of all ranks utter the same
commonplace ideas in very much the same arrangements of syntax. And in
proportion as the democracy of intelligence extends--a friend of mine,
who is a doctor, tells me that complaints formerly reserved to what is
called aristocracy (though what that word means in plain English I don’t
know) are equally shared by the commonalty--_tic-douloureux_ and other
neuralgic maladies abound. And the human race, in England at least, is
becoming more slight and delicate. There is a fable of a man who, when
he became exceedingly old, was turned into a grasshopper. England
is very old, and is evidently approaching the grasshopper state of
development. Perhaps we don’t eat as much beef as our forefathers did.
May I ask you for another slice?”
Kenelm’s remarks were somewhat over the heads of his audience. But
the son, taking them as a slur upon the enlightened spirit of the age,
coloured up and said, with a knitted brow, “I hope, sir, that you are
not an enemy to progress.”
“That depends: for instance, I prefer staying here, where I am well off,
to going farther and faring worse.”
“Well said!” cried the farmer.
Not deigning to notice that interruption, the son took up Kenelm’s reply
with a sneer, “I suppose you mean that it is to fare worse, if you march
with the time.”
“I am afraid we have no option but to march with the time; but when we
reach that stage when to march any farther is to march into old age, we
should not be sorry if time would be kind enough to stand still; and all
good doctors concur in advising us to do nothing to hurry him.”
“There is no sign of old age in this country, sir; and thank Heaven we
are not standing still!”
“Grasshoppers never do; they are always hopping and jumping, and making
what they think ‘progress,’ till (unless they hop into the water and are
swallowed up prematurely by a carp or a frog) they die of the exhaustion
which hops and jumps unremitting naturally produce. May I ask you, Mrs.
Saunderson, for some of that rice-pudding?”
The farmer, who, though he did not quite comprehend Kenelm’s
metaphorical mode of arguing, saw delightedly that his wise son looked
more posed than himself, cried with great glee, “Bob, my boy,--Bob, our
visitor is a little too much for you!”
“Oh, no,” said Kenelm, modestly. “But I honestly think Mr. Bob would be
a wiser man, and a weightier man, and more removed from the grasshopper
state, if he would think less and eat more pudding.”
When the supper was over the farmer offered Kenelm a clay pipe filled
with shag, which that adventurer accepted with his habitual resignation
to the ills of life; and the whole party, excepting Mrs. Saunderson,
strolled into the garden. Kenelm and Mr. Saunderson seated themselves
in the honeysuckle arbour: the girls and the advocate of progress stood
without among the garden flowers. It was a still and lovely night, the
moon at her full. The farmer, seated facing his hayfields, smoked on
placidly. Kenelm, at the third whiff, laid aside his pipe, and glanced
furtively at the three Graces. They formed a pretty group, all clustered
together near the silenced beehives, the two younger seated on the
grass strip that bordered the flower-beds, their arms over each other’s
shoulders, the elder one standing behind them, with the moonlight
shining soft on her auburn hair.
Young Saunderson walked restlessly by himself to and fro the path of
gravel.
“It is a strange thing,” ruminated Kenelm, “that girls are not
unpleasant to look at if you take them collectively,--two or three bound
up together; but if you detach any one of them from the bunch, the odds
are that she is as plain as a pikestaff. I wonder whether that bucolical
grasshopper, who is so enamoured of the hop and jump that he calls
‘progress,’ classes the society of the Mormons among the evidences of
civilized advancement? There is a good deal to be said in favour of
taking a whole lot of wives as one may buy a whole lot of cheap razors.
For it is not impossible that out of a dozen a good one may be found.
And then, too, a whole nosegay of variegated blooms, with a faded
leaf here and there, must be more agreeable to the eye than the same
monotonous solitary lady’s smock. But I fear these reflections are
naughty; let us change them. Farmer,” he said aloud, “I suppose your
handsome daughters are too fine to assist you much. I did not see them
among the haymakers.”
“Oh, they were there, but by themselves, in the back part of the
field. I did not want them to mix with all the girls, many of whom are
strangers from other places. I don’t know anything against them; but as
I don’t know anything for them, I thought it as well to keep my lasses
apart.”
“But I should have supposed it wiser to keep your son apart from them. I
saw him in the thick of those nymphs.”
“Well,” said the farmer, musingly, and withdrawing his pipe from his
lips, “I don’t think lasses not quite well brought up, poor things!
do as much harm to the lads as they can do to proper-behaved lasses;
leastways my wife does not think so. ‘Keep good girls from bad girls,’
says she, ‘and good girls will never go wrong.’ And you will find there
is something in that when you have girls of your own to take care of.”
“Without waiting for that time, which I trust may never occur, I can
recognize the wisdom of your excellent wife’s observation. My own
opinion is, that a woman can more easily do mischief to her own sex than
to ours; since, of course, she cannot exist without doing mischief to
somebody or other.”
“And good, too,” said the jovial farmer, thumping his fist on the table.
“What should we be without women?”
“Very much better, I take it, sir. Adam was as good as gold, and never
had a qualm of conscience or stomach till Eve seduced him into eating
raw apples.”
“Young man, thou’st been crossed in love. I see it now. That’s why thou
look’st so sorrowful.”
“Sorrowful! Did you ever know a man crossed in love who looked less
sorrowful when he came across a pudding?”
“Hey! but thou canst ply a good knife and fork, that I will say for
thee.” Here the farmer turned round, and gazed on Kenelm with deliberate
scrutiny. That scrutiny accomplished, his voice took a somewhat
more respectful tone, as he resumed, “Do you know that you puzzle me
somewhat?”
“Very likely. I am sure that I puzzle myself. Say on.”
“Looking at your dress and--and--”
“The two shillings you gave me? Yes--”
“I took you for the son of some small farmer like myself. But now I
judge from your talk that you are a college chap,--anyhow, a gentleman.
Be n’t it so?”
“My dear Mr. Saunderson, I set out on my travels, which is not long
ago, with a strong dislike to telling lies. But I doubt if a man can get
along through this world without finding that the faculty of lying was
bestowed on him by Nature as a necessary means of self-preservation.
If you are going to ask me any questions about myself, I am sure that
I shall tell you lies. Perhaps, therefore, it may be best for both if
I decline the bed you proffered me, and take my night’s rest under a
hedge.”
“Pooh! I don’t want to know more of a man’s affairs than he thinks fit
to tell me. Stay and finish the haymaking. And I say, lad, I’m glad you
don’t seem to care for the girls; for I saw a very pretty one trying to
flirt with you, and if you don’t mind she’ll bring you into trouble.”
“How? Does she want to run away from her uncle?”
“Uncle! Bless you, she don’t live with him! She lives with her
father; and I never knew that she wants to run away. In fact, Jessie
Wiles--that’s her name--is, I believe, a very good girl, and everybody
likes her,--perhaps a little too much; but then she knows she’s a
beauty, and does not object to admiration.”
“No woman ever does, whether she’s a beauty or not. But I don’t yet
understand why Jessie Wiles should bring me into trouble.”
“Because there is a big hulking fellow who has gone half out of his wits
for her; and when he fancies he sees any other chap too sweet on her he
thrashes him into a jelly. So, youngster, you just keep your skin out of
that trap.”
“Hem! And what does the girl say to those proofs of affection? Does she
like the man the better for thrashing other admirers into jelly?”
“Poor child! No; she hates the very sight of him. But he swears she
shall marry nobody else if he hangs for it. And, to tell you the truth,
I suspect that if Jessie does seem to trifle with others a little too
lightly, it is to draw away this bully’s suspicion from the only man I
think she does care for,--a poor sickly young fellow who was crippled by
an accident, and whom Tom Bowles could brain with his little finger.”
“This is really interesting,” cried Kenelm, showing something like
excitement. “I should like to know this terrible suitor.”
“That’s easy eno’,” said the farmer, dryly. “You have only to take
a stroll with Jessie Wiles after sunset, and you’ll know more of Tom
Bowles than you are likely to forget in a month.”
“Thank you very much for your information,” said Kenelm, in a soft tone,
grateful but pensive. “I hope to profit by it.”
“Do. I should be sorry if any harm came to thee; and Tom Bowles in one
of his furies is as bad to cross as a mad bull. So now, as we must be up
early, I’ll just take a look round the stables, and then off to bed; and
I advise you to do the same.”
“Thank you for the hint. I see the young ladies have already gone in.
Good-night.”
Passing through the garden, Kenelm encountered the junior Saunderson.
“I fear,” said the Votary of Progress, “that you have found the governor
awful slow. What have you been talking about?”
“Girls,” said Kenelm, “a subject always awful, but not necessarily
slow.”
“Girls,--the governor been talking about girls? You joke.”
“I wish I did joke, but that is a thing I could never do since I came
upon earth. Even in the cradle, I felt that life was a very serious
matter, and did not allow of jokes. I remember too well my first dose
of castor-oil. You too, Mr. Bob, have doubtless imbibed that initiatory
preparation to the sweets of existence. The corners of your mouth have
not recovered from the downward curves into which it so rigidly dragged
them. Like myself, you are of grave temperament, and not easily moved
to jocularity,--nay, an enthusiast for Progress is of necessity a man
eminently dissatisfied with the present state of affairs. And chronic
dissatisfaction resents the momentary relief of a joke.”
“Give off chaffing, if you please,” said Bob, lowering the didascular
intonations of his voice, “and just tell me plainly, did not my father
say anything particular about me?”
“Not a word: the only person of the male sex of whom he said anything
particular was Tom Bowles.”
“What, fighting Tom! the terror of the whole neighbourhood! Ah, I guess
the old gentleman is afraid lest Tom may fall foul upon me. But Jessie
Wiles is not worth a quarrel with that brute. It is a crying shame in
the Government--”
“What! has the Government failed to appreciate the heroism of Tom
Bowles, or rather to restrain the excesses of its ardour?”
“Stuff! it is a shame in the Government not to have compelled his father
to put him to school. If education were universal--”
“You think there would be no brutes in particular. It may be so; but
education is universal in China, and so is the bastinado. I thought,
however, that you said the schoolmaster was abroad, and that the age of
enlightenment was in full progress.”
“Yes, in the towns, but not in these obsolete rural districts; and that
brings me to the point. I feel lost, thrown away here. I have something
in me, sir, and it can only come out by collision with equal minds. So
do me a favour, will you?”
“With the greatest pleasure.”
“Give the governor a hint that he can’t expect me, after the education
I have had, to follow the plough and fatten pigs; and that Manchester is
the place for ME.”
“Why Manchester?”
“Because I have a relation in business there who will give me a
clerkship if the governor will consent. And Manchester rules England.”
“Mr. Bob Saunderson, I will do my best to promote your wishes. This is
a land of liberty, and every man should choose his own walk in it, so
that, at the last, if he goes to the dogs, he goes to them without that
disturbance of temper which is naturally occasioned by the sense of
being driven to their jaws by another man against his own will. He has
then no one to blame but himself. And that, Mr. Bob, is a great comfort.
When, having got into a scrape, we blame others, we unconsciously
become unjust, spiteful, uncharitable, malignant, perhaps revengeful.
We indulge in feelings which tend to demoralize the whole character.
But when we only blame ourselves, we become modest and penitent. We make
allowances for others. And indeed self-blame is a salutary exercise of
conscience, which a really good man performs every day of his life. And
now, will you show me the room in which I am to sleep, and forget for a
few hours that I am alive at all: the best thing that can happen to us
in this world, my dear Mr. Bob! There’s never much amiss with our days,
so long as we can forget about them the moment we lay our heads on the
pillow.”
The two young men entered the house amicably, arm in arm. The girls had
already retired, but Mrs. Saunderson was still up to conduct her
visitor to the guest’s chamber,--a pretty room which had been furnished
twenty-two years ago on the occasion of the farmer’s marriage, at the
expense of Mrs. Saunderson’s mother, for her own occupation when she
paid them a visit, and with its dimity curtains and trellised paper it
still looked as fresh and new as if decorated and furnished yesterday.
Left alone, Kenelm undressed, and before he got into bed, bared
his right arm, and doubling it, gravely contemplated its muscular
development, passing his left hand over that prominence in the upper
part which is vulgarly called the ball. Satisfied apparently with the
size and the firmness of that pugilistic protuberance, he gently sighed
forth, “I fear I shall have to lick Thomas Bowles.” In five minutes more
he was asleep.