My friend the publisher calls the Loafer's narratives "thrilling," but
I, as editor of the Diaries, would prefer another adjective. The Loafer
was a man who only cared for gloom and squalor after he had given up the
world of gaiety and refinement. Men of his stamp, when they receive a
crushing mental blow, always shrink away like wounded animals and
forsake their companions. A very distinguished man, who is now living,
disappeared for fifteen years, and chose on his return to be regarded as
an utter stranger. His former self had died, and he was strengthened and
embittered by suffering. The Loafer was of that breed.
Two locked volumes of the Loafer's Diary were delivered to me, and I
found that the man had once been joyous to the last degree, ambitious,
successful, and full of generous thoughts and fine aspirations. Some of
his songs breathe the very spirit of delight, and he wrote his glad
thoughts at night when he could not sleep for the keen pleasure of
living. Then comes a sudden cloud, and from that time onward the Diary
is bitter, brutal, and baldly descriptive of life's abominations. It
would not become me to speak with certainty, but I fancy that a woman
had something to do with the Loafer's wild and reckless change. He is
reticent, but his poems all point in one direction. Here is a grave note
of passion:--
The sombre heather framed you round,
The starlight touched your pallid face,
You moved across the silvered ground--
The night was happy with your grace.
The air was steeped in silver fire,
The gorse was touched with silvern sheen;
The nightingales--the holy choir--
Sang bridal songs for you, my queen.
But songs and starfire, pomp of night,
Murmur of trees and Ocean's roll,
Were poor beside the blind delight--
The Love that quivered in my soul.
Further on there is a single brief verse like a cry of rage and
despair:--
And is it then the End of all?
O, Father! What a doom is mine--
An unreturning prodigal,
Who feeds on husks and herds with swine!
After many ravings the torn soul seems to grow calm, and we have this
pensive and tender fragment of music:--
The dreams that fill the thoughtful night,
All holy dreams are in the sky,
They stoop to me with viewless flight,
And bid me wave my care good-bye.
Spread your dim wings, O sacred friends,
Fleet softly to your starry place;
I'll meet you as my journey ends,
When I shall crave our Master's grace.
Till I may join your shadowy band
I'll think of things that are to be--
The far-off joy, the Unseen Land,
The Lover I shall never see.
After this our man plunges into the slums, and we have no more poetry.
One who loved him asked me to go through his journals, and nearly all I
know of him is derived from them. By chance I have heard that he was
passionately fond of children, but avoided women. One who knew him said
that he was witty, and often strung off epigrams by the hour together,
but he was always subject to fits of blind frenzy, during which his wit
and his genuine sagacity left him. No one followed him to his grave; but
he was visited in hospital by a tall, fair lady, who gazed on him with
stern composure. He sneered even while dying. "I'm a pretty object, am I
not? I was going to shake the world. Will you kiss me once?"
The tall lady stooped and kissed him; he gasped, "Thank you. It was more
than I deserved. And now for the Dark."
The lady sighed a little and went away, and I think that a bunch of
heather which lay on the coffin must have come from her. Anyway, that is
all I know about the Loafer, and he may now tell his story of the Pink
Tom Cat in his own way. You observe how drily circumstantial he is.
* * * * *
I shall not be able to go on with Billy Devine's story for some time. We
have had an ugly business here, and it is now two months since I wrote a
line. It was only by making special inquiry that I found how time had
gone, for I have been living in a nightmare.
One fine morning I put on smart flannels and went for a scull on the
river. If ever you drink too much it is best to force yourself into
violent exercise at any cost, and for that reason I determined to row
until the effects of a very bad night had worn off. Usually I keep
myself clear of after consequences, but I had been with a keen set, and
we did not go to bed at all. When we contrived to separate at 7 a.m.,
some of my companions began on a fresh day's drinking, but I chose to
take a rest.
It was a lovely morning, and I felt like a bad sort of criminal amid the
clear, splendid beauty. When the light wind struck across the surface of
the river it seemed as if the water were pelted with falling jewels; the
osiers bowed and sighed as the breeze ran along their tops; and, here
and there, a spirt of shaken dewdrops described a flashing arc, and fell
poppling into the stream. Ah! how solemnly glad and pure and radiant the
great trees looked! The larks had gone wild with the joy of living, and
their delicious rivalry, their ceaseless gurgle of liquid melody, seemed
somehow to match the multitudinous glitter of the mighty clouds of
foliage. For a man with pure palate and healthy eye the sights and
sounds would have made a heaven; but my mouth was like a furnace, and
my eye was fevered. Nevertheless, I managed to enjoy the sweet panorama
more and more as my muscles grew tense, and I pulled on doggedly for
full three hours, until I had not a dry stitch on me; then a funny
little waterside inn drew my eye, and I went ashore. Bob Darbishire met
me with a shout of welcome, and I wondered what brought him there. Bob
did not often visit The Chequers, for he was a wealthy fellow, and he
liked best to fool his time away in flash billiard-rooms; but he knew me
well enough, and I was on as easy terms with him as with the costers and
Rommany chals. I say _was_ when I speak of him. Ah me!
Bob succeeded to a great deal of ready money and a good business when he
was barely twenty-one, and he broke out into a rackety life at once, for
he had been hard held in by his father and mother, and his mad
activities craved for some vent. Had he been well guided he would have
become a useful citizen, but he was driven with a cruel bit, and the
reins were savagely jerked whenever he seemed restive. When he once was
free, he set off at a wild rate down the steep that leads to perdition,
and plenty of people cheered him as he flew on. It vexed me often to see
a fine, generous lad surrounded by spongers who rooked him at every
turn; but what could one do? The sponger has no mercy and no manliness;
he is always a person with violent appetites, and he will procure
excitement at the cost of his manliness and even of his honesty.
Bob had an open hand, and thought nothing of paying for twenty
brandies-and-sodas in the course of a morning. Twenty times eightpence
does not seem much, but if you keep up that average daily for a year you
have spent a fair income. No one ever tried to stay this prodigal with a
word of advice; indeed, in such cases advice is always useless, for the
very man whom you may seek to save is exceedingly likely to swear, or
even to strike at you. He thinks you impugn his wisdom and sharpness,
and he loves, above all things, to be regarded as an acute fellow. A few
favoured gentry almost lived on Bob, and scores of outsiders had pretty
pickings when he was in a lavish humour, which was nearly every day. He
betted on races, and lost; he played billiards, and lost; he ran fox
terriers, and lost; he played Nap for hours at a stretch, and generally
lost. He was only successful in games that required strength and daring.
Then, of course, he must needs emulate the true sporting men in amorous
achievements, and thus his income bore the drain of some two or three
little establishments. Bob would always try to drink twice as much as
any other man, and he treated himself with the same liberality in the
matter of ex-barmaids and chorus girls. The Wicked Nobleman was a
somewhat reckless character in his way, but his feats would not bear
comparison with those performed by many and many a young fellow who
belongs to the wealthy middle class. Alas! for that splendid middle
class which once represented all that was sober and steady and
trustworthy in Britain! Go into any smart billiard-room nowadays, or
make a round of the various race meetings, and you will see something to
make you sad. You see one vast precession of Rakes making their mad
Progress.
Bob was always kindly with me, as, indeed, he was with everybody. The
very bookmakers scarcely had the heart to offer him false prices, and
only the public-house spongers gave him no law. But, then the sponger
spares nobody. On this memorable morning the lad was rigged in orthodox
flannels, and he looked ruddy and well, but the ruddiness was not quite
of the right sort. He had begun drinking early, and his eye had that
incipient gloss which always appears about the time when the one
pleasurable moment of drunkenness has come. There is but one pleasant
moment in a drinking bout, and men make themselves stupid by trying to
make that fleeting moment permanent. Bob cried, "Come on, sonny. Oh!
what would I give for your thirst! Mine's gone! I'm three parts copped
already. Come on. Soda, is it?"
Then, with the usual crass idiocy of our tribe, we proceeded to swallow
oblivion by the tumbler until the afternoon was nearly gone. I felt damp
and cold and sticky, so I said I should scull home and change my
clothes. Then Darbishire yelled with spluttering cordiality, "Home! Not
if I know it! My togs just fit you. Go and have a bath, and we'll shove
you in the next room to mine. I'm on the rampage, and Joe Coney's coming
to-night. You've got nothing to do. Have it out with us. Blow me! we'll
have a week--we'll have a fortnight--we'll have a month."