SAID Kenelm, at last breaking silence--
“‘Rapiamus, amici,
Occasionem de die, dumque virent genua,
Et decet, obducta solvatur fronte senectus!’”
“Is not that quotation from Horace?” asked the minstrel.
“Yes; and I made it insidiously, in order to see if you had not acquired
what is called a classical education.”
“I might have received such education, if my tastes and my destinies
had not withdrawn me in boyhood from studies of which I did not then
comprehend the full value. But I did pick up a smattering of Latin at
school; and from time to time since I left school I have endeavoured to
gain some little knowledge of the most popular Latin poets; chiefly, I
own to my shame, by the help of literal English translations.”
“As a poet yourself, I am not sure that it would be an advantage to know
a dead language so well that its forms and modes of thought ran,
though perhaps unconsciously, into those of the living one in which you
compose. Horace might have been a still better poet if he had not known
Greek better than you know Latin.”
“It is at least courteous in you to say so,” answered the singer, with a
pleased smile.
“You would be still more courteous,” said Kenelm, “if you would pardon
an impertinent question, and tell me whether it is for a wager that you
wander through the land, Homer-like, as a wandering minstrel, and allow
that intelligent quadruped your companion to carry a tray in his mouth
for the reception of pennies?”
“No, it is not for a wager; it is a whim of mine, which I fancy from
the tone of your conversation you could understand, being apparently
somewhat whimsical yourself.”
“So far as whim goes, be assured of my sympathy.”
“Well, then, though I follow a calling by the exercise of which I secure
a modest income, my passion is verse. If the seasons were always summer,
and life were always youth, I should like to pass through the world
singing. But I have never ventured to publish any verses of mine. If
they fell still-born it would give me more pain than such wounds to
vanity ought to give to a bearded man; and if they were assailed or
ridiculed it might seriously injure me in my practical vocation. That
last consideration, were I quite alone in the world, might not much
weigh on me; but there are others for whose sake I should like to make
fortune and preserve station. Many years ago--it was in Germany--I fell
in with a German student who was very poor, and who did make money by
wandering about the country with lute and song. He has since become a
poet of no mean popularity, and he has told me that he is sure he found
the secret of that popularity in habitually consulting popular tastes
during his roving apprenticeship to song. His example strongly impressed
me. So I began this experiment; and for several years my summers have
been all partly spent in this way. I am only known, as I think I told
you before, in the rounds I take as ‘The Wandering Minstrel;’ I receive
the trifling moneys that are bestowed on me as proofs of a certain
merit. I should not be paid by poor people if I did not please; and the
songs which please them best are generally those I love best myself.
For the rest, my time is not thrown away,--not only as regards bodily
health, but healthfulness of mind: all the current of one’s ideas
becomes so freshened by months of playful exercise and varied
adventure.”
“Yes, the adventure is varied enough,” said Kenelm, somewhat ruefully;
for he felt, in shifting his posture, a sharp twinge of his bruised
muscles. “But don’t you find those mischief-makers, the women, always
mix themselves up with adventure?”
“Bless them! of course,” said the minstrel, with a ringing laugh. “In
life, as on the stage, the petticoat interest is always the strongest.”
“I don’t agree with you there,” said Kenelm, dryly. “And you seem to
me to utter a claptrap beneath the rank of your understanding. However,
this warm weather indisposes one to disputation; and I own that a
petticoat, provided it be red, is not without the interest of colour in
a picture.”
“Well, young gentleman,” said the minstrel, rising, “the day is wearing
on, and I must wish you good-by; probably, if you were to ramble about
the country as I do, you would see too many pretty girls not to teach
you the strength of petticoat interest,--not in pictures alone; and
should I meet you again I may find you writing love-verses yourself.”
“After a conjecture so unwarrantable, I part company with you less
reluctantly than I otherwise might do. But I hope we shall meet again.”
“Your wish flatters me much; but, if we do, pray respect the confidence
I have placed in you, and regard my wandering minstrelsy and my dog’s
tray as sacred secrets. Should we not so meet, it is but a prudent
reserve on my part if I do not give you my right name and address.”
“There you show the cautious common-sense which belongs rarely to lovers
of verse and petticoat interest. What have you done with your guitar?”
“I do not pace the roads with that instrument: it is forwarded to me
from town to town under a borrowed name, together with other raiment
that this, should I have cause to drop my character of wandering
minstrel.”
The two men here exchanged a cordial shake of the hand. And as the
minstrel went his way along the river-side, his voice in chanting seemed
to lend to the wavelets a livelier murmur, to the reeds a less plaintive
sigh.