A DISASTER BY WATER IS THE FIRST CAUSE OF ALL RALPH'S FUTURE DISASTERS
UPON IT--HE GETS WITH HIS TUTOR OUT OF HIS DEPTH, IN LATITUDE AND
LONGITUDE; AND FINDS HIMSELF RIVALLED BY THE MAN WITH THE PEG.
Of course, Mr R sought and soon gained the friendship of Mrs Cherfeuil
and then he commenced operations systematically. Now he would endeavour
to take her by surprise--now to overcome by entreaty--and then to entrap
by the most complex cross questions. He would be, by turns, tender,
gallant, pathetic, insinuating; but all was of no avail--her secret,
whatever it was, was firmly secured in her own bosom. With well-acted
simplicity she gave my worthy friend the same barren account about me
that was at the service of all interrogators.
What poems did not Mr R and myself write together--how he prophesied my
future greatness, and how fervently he set about to convince anyone of
the mistake, who could not see in me the future glory of the age! The
good man! His amiable _self-deception_ was to him the source of the
purest happiness; and never was happiness more deserved. Even at that
early age, I often could not help smiling at his simplicity, that all
the while he was doing his best to make me one of the vainest and most
egregious coxcombs, by his unfeigned wonder at some puny effort of my
puny muse, and by his injudicious praises; he would lecture me
parentally, by the hour, upon the excellence of humility, and the
absolute necessity of modesty, as a principal ingredient to make a great
character.
However, I had my correction at home, in my wooden-legged preceptor; if
I returned from R's, in my own imagination, like poor Gil Blas, the
eighth wonder of the world, he would soon, in his own refined
phraseology, convince me that I was "no great shakes." Being now nearly
sixteen, I began to make conjectures upon my future destiny; and a
sorrowful accident at once determined in what line I should make my
ineffectual attempts upon fame.
I have mentioned a noble piece of water that lay adjacent to the school.
It was during the holidays, when the rest of the young gentlemen were
at their respective homes, that I, accompanied by some young
acquaintances who resided in the village, repaired to the water to swim.
It was a fine summer afternoon, and both Mr and Mrs Cherfeuil were in
town. There was a little boy named Fountain, also staying with me at
school during the vacation, and he too stole after us unperceived, and
when I and my companions had swam to middle of the lake, the imprudent
little fellow also stripped and went into the water. There were some
idle stragglers looking on, and when I was far, very far from the sport,
the fearful shout came along the level surface, of "Help, help, he is
drowning!" and with dreadful distinctness, as if the voice had been
shrieked into my very ears, I heard the poor lad's bubbling and
smothered cry of "Ralph Rattlin!" Poor fellow, he thought there was
safety wherever I was, for I had often borne him over the lake out of
his depth, as I taught him to swim, at which art he was still too
imperfect. I immediately turned to the place, and strove, and buffeted,
and panted; but the distance was great, and, though a rapid and most
expert swimmer, when I arrived at the spot that the lookers-on
indicated, not a circle, not a ruffle appeared, to show where a human
soul was struggling beneath, to free itself from its mortal clay. Four
or five times I dived, and stayed below the water with desperate
pertinacity, and ploughed up the muddy bottom, but they had pointed out
to me the wrong spot.
Finding my efforts useless, naked as I was, with the fleetness of a
greyhound, I started into the village and gave the alarm, and
immediately that I saw the people running to the lake, I was there
before them, and again diving. Mrs ---, the lady of the M.P. whom I
have before mentioned, who was always the foremost in every work of
humanity, was soon on the banks, accompanied by many of the most
respectable inhabitants in the vicinity. Mrs ---, who never lost her
presence of mind, immediately suggested that a boat that lay on the
neighbouring river, and which belonged to the landlord of the principal
inn, should be conveyed, on men's shoulders, across the space of land
that divided one water from the other. The landlord refused,--yes,
actually refused; but Mrs ---, who, from her station, and her many
virtues, possessed a merited and commanding influence in the place,
ordered the boat to be taken by force, and she was promptly and
cheerfully obeyed. Whilst this was going forward, I was astonishing
everybody by the length of time I stayed underneath the water; and a
last effort almost proved fatal to me, for, when I arose, the blood
gushed from my mouth and nose, and, when I got on shore, I felt so weak,
that I was obliged to be assisted in dressing my self. The boat now
began to sweep the bottom with ropes, but this proved as ineffectual to
recover the body as were my own exertions.
It was the next day before it was found, and then it was brought up by a
Newfoundland dog, very far from the spot in which we had searched for
it. Had the frightened spectators, who stood on the shore, shown me
correctly where the lad had disappeared, I have no doubt but that I
should have brought the body in time for resuscitation. To persons who
have not seen what can be done by those who make water, in a manner,
their own element, my boyish exertions seemed almost miraculous. My
good old friend was present, betraying a curious mixture of fear and
admiration; big as I then was, he almost carried me in his arms home,
that is, to the school-house, and there we found all in confusion: Mrs
Cherfeuil had just arrived, and hearing that one of the boys was
drowned, had given one painful shriek and fainted. When we came into
the room she was still in a state of insensibility, and, as we stood
around, she slowly opened her eyes; but the moment that they became
conscious of my presence, she leaped up with frantic joy, and strained
me in her arms, and then, laying her head upon my shoulder, burst into a
passion of tears. Mr R cast upon me a most triumphant smile: and, as
he led me away from the agitated lady, she took a silent farewell of me,
with a look of intense fondness, and a depth of ineffable felicity,
which I hope will be present to me in my dying hour, for assuredly it
will make light the parting pang.
This affair changed the whole current of Mr R's ideas, and altered his
plans for me. I was no longer to be the future poet-laureate; I was no
more enticed to sing great deeds, but to do them. The sword was to
displace the pen, the hero the poet. Verse was too effeminate, and
rhyme was severely interdicted, and to be forgiven only when it was
produced by accident.
He was some time before he brought Mrs Cherfeuil over to his opinions.
It was in vain that she protested the direction of my fate was in other
hands, he would not listen to it for a moment; he was obstinate, and I
suppose, by what occurred, he was in the right. He declared that the
navy was the only profession that deserved my spirit and my abilities.
This declaration, perhaps, was not unacceptable at head-quarters,
wherever they might have been. For myself, I was nothing loath, and the
gallant bearing and the graceful uniform of my gallant young friend,
Frank ---, who had already seen some hard fighting, added fresh
stimulants to my desires. My friend Riprapton had now the enviable task
to impart to me the science of navigation; and, with his peculiar
notions of longitude and latitude, there can be no question as to the
merits of the tuition that I received from that very erudite person.
Shortly after I had commenced navigation under his auspices--or, more
properly speaking, that he was forced to attend to it a little under
mine--the harmony of our friendship was broken by a quarrel, yes, a
heart-embroiling quarrel--and, strange to say, about a lady. I concede
to this paragon of ushers that he was a general favourite with the sex.
I was never envious of him. All the world knows that I ever did
sufficient honour to his attractions,--I acknowledged always the graces
that appertained to his wooden progression--but still, he was not
omnipotent. Wilkes, that epitome of all manner of ugliness, often
boasted that he was only an hour behind the handsomest man that ever
existed, so far as regarded his position with the fair. Rip was but
twenty-five minutes and a fraction. In ten minutes he would talk the
generality of women into a good opinion of themselves--an easy matter,
some may think, for the ladies have one ready made; but it is a
different thing from having it and daring to own it. In ten minutes he
would make his listener, by some act or word, avow her opinion of her
own excellence; in ten more he would bring her to the same opinion as
regarded himself; and the remaining five he used to occupy with his
declaration of love, for he was very rapid in his execution,--and the
thing was done, for if he had not made a conquest he chronicled one--and
that was the same thing. He looked more for the glory than the fruition
of his passions. In one respect, he followed Chesterfield's advice with
wonderful accuracy; he hazarded a declaration of love to every woman
between sixteen and sixty, a little under and over also; for, with his
lordship, he came to the very pertinent conclusion, that, if the act
were not taken as a sincerity, it would be as a compliment. This
ready-made adorer for every new-comer was as jealous as he was universal
in his attachments.
Let the imaginative think, and, running over with their mind's eye all
the beautiful sculptures of antiquity, endeavour to picture to
themselves a personation of that commanding goddess that the ancients
venerated under the title of Juno. The figure must be tall, in
proportion faultless, in majesty unrivalled, in grace enchanting; all
the outlines of the form must be full, yet not swelling, and as far
removed from the modern notions of _en bon point_ as possible; let us
add to these the bust of Venus ere she weaned her first-born, the winged
boy-god; and then we may have an adequate idea of the figure of Mrs
Causand. Her face was of that style of beauty that those women who
think themselves delicate are pleased to slander under the name of
bold,--a style of beauty, however, that all men admire, and most men
like. Thirty-five years had only written in a stronger hand those
attractions which must have undergone every phase of loveliness, and
which now, without appearing matronly, seemed stamped with the signs of
a long-enduring maturity. The admiration she excited was general: as
she passed, men paused to look upon her, and women whispered to each
other behind her back. Never, till this paragon had made her
appearance, had I heard of ladies wearing supposititious portions of the
human frame--now I found that envy, or the figure-maker, had improved
almost every member of Mrs Causand's body. It was voted by all the
female scandal of the village, that such perfection could not be
natural; but, since if all were true that was said upon the subject, the
object of their criticism must have been as artificial as Mr
Riprapton's left leg, and she must have been nothing more than an
animated lay-figure, I began to disbelieve these assertions, the more
especially as the lady herself was as easy under them as she was in
every gesture and motion. Whenever she made her appearance, so did my
old friend Mr R; he entertained a platonic attachment for her, and that
the more strongly, as each visit enabled him to entertain every one who
would listen to him, with a long story about the king of Prussia. And
every lady expects attention and politeness as a matter of course,
equally as a matter of course did she expect the assiduities and some
manifestation, even stronger than gallantry, and treated it merely as a
matter of course. Really, without an hyperbole, she was a woman to whom
an appearance of devotion might be excusable, and looked upon more as a
tribute to the abstract spirit of beauty and its divine Creator, than as
a sensual testimony to the individual.
Her first appearance even silenced the hitherto dauntless loquacity of
Rip--for half a minute. But he made fearful amends for this involuntary
display of modesty afterwards. _Secundum artem_, he opened all the
batteries of his fascination upon her. He rolled his eyes at her with a
violence approaching to agony; he bowed; he displayed in every possible
and captivating attitude his one living leg--but his surpassing strength
was in the adulation of his serpent tongue--and she bore it all so
stoically; she would smile upon him when he made a good hit, as upon an
actor on the boards--she would, at times, even condescend to improve
some of his compliments upon herself; and when her easy manners had
perchance overset him at the very _debut_ of one of his finest speeches,
she would begin it again for him; taking up the dropped sentence, and
then settle herself into a complacent attitude for listening.