“Young lady in deep mourning, sir,--crape shawl and bonnet, sir,” said
the official, in answer to my question, aided by a shilling fee; “the
same as asked where was the station for the Dover Line.”
“Yes, yes; that must be she.”
“Got into a cab, sir, and drove off straight for the Sou'Eastern.”
“She was quite alone?”
“Quite, sir; but she seems used to travelling,--got her traps together
in no time, and was off in a jiffy.”
“Stupid dog!” thought I; “with every advantage position and accident
can confer, how little this fellow reads of character! In this poor,
forlorn, heart-weary orphan, he only sees something like a commercial
traveller!”
“Any luggage, sir? Is this yours?” said he, pointing to a woolsack.
“No,” said I, haughtily; “my servants have gone forward with my luggage.
I have nothing but a knapsack.” And with an air of dignity I flung
it into a hansom, and ordered the driver to set me down at the
South-Eastern. Although using every exertion, the train had just started
when I arrived, and a second time was I obliged to wait some hours at
a station. Resolving to free myself from all the captivations of that
tendency to day-dreaming,--that fatal habit of suffering my fancy to
direct my steps, as though in pursuit of some settled purpose,--I calmly
asked myself whither I was going--and for what? Before I had begun
the examination, I deemed myself a most candid, truth-observing, frank
witness, and now I discovered that I was casuistical and “dodgy” as an
Old Bailey lawyer. I was haughty and indignant at being so catechised.
My conscience, on the shallow pretext of being greatly interested about
me, was simply prying and inquisitive. Conscience is all very well when
one desires to appeal to it, and refer some distinct motive or action to
its appreciation; but it is scarcely fair, and certainly not dignified,
for conscience to go about seeking for little accusations of this kind
or that. What liberty of action is there, besides, to a man who carries
a “detective” with him wherever he goes? And lastly, conscience has the
intolerable habit of obtruding its opinion upon details, and will not
wait to judge by results. Now, when I have won the race, come in first,
amid the enthusiastic cheers of thousands, I don't care to be asked,
however privately, whether I did not practise some little bit of rather
unfair jockeyship. I never could rightly get over my dislike to the
friend who would take this liberty with me; and this is exactly the part
conscience plays, and with an insufferable air of superiority, too, as
though to say, “None of your shuffling with me, Potts! That will do all
mighty well with the outer world, but _I_ am not to be humbugged. You
never devised a scheme in your life that I was not by at the cookery,
and saw how you mixed the ingredients and stirred the pot! No, no, old
fellow, all your little secret rogueries will avail you nothing here!”
Had these words been actually addressed to me by a living individual, I
could not have heard them more plainly than now they fell upon my ear,
uttered, besides, in a tone of cutting, sarcastic derision. “I will
stand this no longer!” cried I, springing up from my seat and flinging
my cigar angrily away. “I 'm certain no man ever accomplished any high
and great destiny in life who suffered himself to be bullied in this
wise; such irritating, pestering impertinence would destroy the temper
of a saint, and break down the courage and damp the ardor of the
boldest. Could great measures of statecraft be carried out--could
battles be won--could new continents be discovered, if at every
strait and every emergency one was to be interrupted by a low voice,
whispering, 'Is this _all_ right? Are there no flaws here? You live in a
world of frailties, Potts. You are playing at a round game, where every
one cheats a little, and where the Drogueries are never remembered
against him who wins. Bear that in your mind, and keep your cards
“up.”'”
When I was about to take my ticket, a dictum of the great moralist
struck my mind: “Desultory reading has slain its thousands and tens
of thousands;” and if desultory reading, why not infinitely more so
desultory acquaintance? Surely, our readings do not impress us as
powerfully as the actual intercourse of life. It must be so. It is
in this daily conflict with our fellow-men that we are moulded and
fashioned; and the danger is, to commingle and confuse the impressions
made upon our hearts, to cross the writing on our natures so often that
nothing remains legible! “I will guard against this peril,” thought I.
“I will concentrate my intentions and travel alone.” I slipped a crown
into a guard's hand, and whispered, “Put no one in here if you can help
it” As I jogged along, all by myself, I could not help feeling that one
of the highest privileges of wealth must be to be able always to buy
solitude,--to be in a position to say, “None shall invade me. The
world must contrive to go round without a kick from _me_. I am a
self-contained and self-suffering creature.” If I were Rothschild, I 'd
revel in this sentiment; it places one so immeasurably above that busy
ant-hill where one sees the creatures hurrying, hastening, and
fagging “till their hearts are broken.” One feels himself a superior
intelligence,--a being above the wants and cares of the work-a-day world
around him.
“Any room here?” cried a merry voice, breaking in upon my musing; and
at the same instant a young fellow, in a gray travelling-suit and
a wideawake, flung a dressing-bag and a wrapper carelessly into the
carriage, and so recklessly as to come tumbling over me. He never
thought of apology, however, but continued his remarks to the guard, who
was evidently endeavoring to induce him to take a place elsewhere. “No,
no!” cried the young man; “I'm all right here, and the cove with the
yellow hair won't object to my smoking.”
I heard these words as I sat in the corner, and I need scarcely say how
grossly the impertinence offended me. That the privacy I had paid for
should be invaded was bad enough, but that my companion should begin
acquaintance with an insult was worse again; and so I determined on no
account, nor upon any pretext, would I hold intercourse with him, but
maintain a perfect silence and reserve so long as our journey lasted.
There was an insufferable jauntiness and self-satisfaction in every
movement of the new arrival, even to the reckless way he pitched
into the carriage three small white canvas bags, carefully sealed and
docketed; the address--which! read--being, “To H.M.'s Minister and Envoy
at------, by the Hon. Grey Buller, Attaché, &c” So, then, this was one
of the Young Guard of Diplomacy, one of those sucking Talleyrands,
which form the hope of the Foreign Office and the terror of middle-class
English abroad.
“Do you mind smoking?” asked he, abruptly, as he scraped his lucifer
match against the roof of the carriage, showing, by the promptitude of
his action, how little he cared for my reply.
“I never smoke, sir, except in the carriages reserved for smokers,” was
my rebukeful answer.
“And I always do,” said he, in a very easy tone.
Not condescending to notice this rude rejoinder, I drew forth my
newspaper, and tried to occupy myself with its contents.
“Anything new?” asked he, abruptly.
“Not that I am aware, sir. I was about to consult the paper.”
“What paper is it?”
“It is the 'Banner,' sir,--at your service,” said I, with a sort of
sarcasm.
“Rascally print; a vile, low, radical, mill-owning organ. Pitch it
away!”
“Certainly not, sir. Being for _me_ and _my_ edification, I will beg to
exercise my own judgment as to how I deal with it.”
“It's deuced low, that's what it is, and that's exactly the fault of
all our daily papers. Their tone is vulgar; they reflect nothing of the
opinions one hears in society. Don't you agree with me?”
I gave a sort of muttering dissent, and he broke in quickly,--“Perhaps
not; it's just as likely _you_ would not think them low, but take _my_
word for it, _I'm_ right.”
I shook my head negatively, without speaking.
“Well, now,” cried he, “let us put the thing to the test Read out one of
those leaders. I don't care which, or on what subject Read it out, and
I pledge myself to show you at least one vulgarism, one flagrant outrage
on good breeding, in every third sentence.”
“I protest, sir,” said I, haughtily, “I shall do no such thing. I have
come here neither to read aloud nor take up the defence of the public
press.”
“I say, look out!” cried he; “you 'll smash something in that bag you
're kicking there. If I don't mistake, it's Bohemian glass. No, no; all
right,” said he, examining the number, “it's only Yarmouth bloaters.”
“I imagined these contained despatches, sir,” said I, with a look of
what he ought to have understood as withering scorn.
“You did, did you?” cried he, with a quick laugh. “Well, I 'll bet you
a sovereign I make a better guess about _your_ pack than you 've done
about _mine_.”
“Done, sir; I take you,” said I, quickly.
“Well; you 're in cutlery, or hardware, or lace goods, or ribbons, or
alpaca cloth, or drugs, ain't you?”
“I am not, sir,” was my stern reply.
“Not a bagman?”
“Not a bagman, sir.”
“Well, you 're an usher in a commercial academy, or 'our own
correspondent,' or a telegraph clerk?”
“I 'm none of these, sir. And I now beg to remind you, that instead of
one guess, you have made about a dozen.”
“Well, you 've won, there's no denying it,” said he, taking a sovereign
from his waistcoat-pocket and handing it to me. “It's deuced odd how
I should be mistaken. I 'd have sworn you were a bagman!” But for the
impertinence of these last words I should have declined to accept his
lost bet, but I took it now as a sort of vindication of my wounded
feelings. “Now it's all over and ended,” said he, calmly, “what are
you? I don't ask out of any impertinent curiosity, but that I hate being
foiled in a thing of this kind. What are you?”
“I 'll tell you what I am, sir,” said I, indignantly, for now I was
outraged beyond endurance,--“I 'll tell you, sir, what I am, and what I
feel myself,--one singularly unlucky in a travelling-companion.”
“Bet you a five-pound note you're not,” broke he in. “Give you six to
five on it, in anything you like.”
“It would be a wager almost impossible to decide, sir.”
“Nothing of the kind. Let us leave it to the first pretty woman we see
at the station, the guard of the train, the fellow in the pay-office,
the stoker if you like.”
“I must own, sir, that you express a very confident opinion of your
case.”
“Will you bet?”
“No, sir, certainly not”
“Well, then, shut up, and say no more about it. If a man won't back his
opinion, the less he says the better.”
I lay back in my place at this, determined that no provocation should
induce me to exchange another word with him. Apparently, he had not made
a like resolve, for he went on: “It's all bosh about appearances being
deceptive, and so forth. They say 'not all gold that glitters;' my
notion is that with a fellow who really knows life, no disguise that was
ever invented will be successful: the way a man wears his hair,”--here
he looked at mine,--“the sort of gloves he has, if there be anything
peculiar in his waistcoat, and, above all, his boots. I don't believe
the devil was ever more revealed in his hoof than a snob by his shoes.”
A most condemnatory glance at my extremities accompanied this speech.
“Must I endure this sort of persecution all the way to Dover?” was the
question I asked of my misery.
“Look out, you're on fire!” said he, with a dry laugh. And sure enough,
a spark from his cigarette had fallen on my trousers, and burned a round
hole in them.
“Really, sir,” cried I, in passionate warmth, “your conduct becomes
intolerable.”
“Well, if I knew you preferred being singed, I'd have said-nothing about
it. What's this station here? Where's your 'Bradshaw'?”
“I have got no 'Bradshaw,' sir,” said I, with dignity.
“No 'Bradshaw '! A bagman without 'Bradshaw'! Oh, I forgot, you ain't
a bagman. Why are we stopping here? Something smashed, I suspect. Eh!
what! isn't that she? Yes, it is! Open the door!--let me out, I say!
Confound the lock!--let me out!” While he uttered these words, in an
accent of the wildest impatience, I had but time to see a lady, in deep
mourning, pass on to a carriage in front, just as, with a preliminary
snort, the train shook, then backed, and at last set out on its
thundering course again. “Such a stunning fine girl!” said he, as he
lighted a fresh cigar; “saw her just as we started, and thought I 'd run
her to earth in this carriage. Precious mistake I made, eh, was n't it?
All in black--deep black--and quite alone!”
I had to turn towards the window not to let him perceive how his words
agitated me, for I felt certain it was Miss Herbert he was describing,
and I felt a sort of revulsion to think of the poor girl being subjected
to the impertinence of this intolerable puppy.
“Too much style about her for a governess; and yet, somehow, she
was n't, so to say--you know what I mean--she was n't altogether _that_;
looked frightened, and people of real class never look frightened.”
“The daughter of a clergyman, probably,” said I, with a tone of such
reproof as I hoped must check all levity.
“Or a flash maid! some of them, nowadays, are wonderful swells; they 've
got an art of dressing and making-up that is really surprising.”
“I have no experience of the order, sir,” said I, gravely.
“Well, so I should say. _Your_ beat is in the haberdashery or hosiery
line, eh?”
“Has it not yet occurred to you, sir,” asked I, sternly, “that an
acquaintanceship brief as ours should exclude personalities, not to
say--” I wanted to add “impertinences;” but his gray eyes were turned
full on me, with an expression so peculiar that I faltered, and could
not get the word out.
“Well, go on,--out with it: not to say what?” said he, calmly.
I turned my shoulder towards him, and nestled down into my place.
“There's a thing, now,” said he, in a tone of the coolest
reflection,--“there's a thing, now, that I never could understand, and
I have never met the man to explain it. Our nation, as a nation, is just
as plucky as the French,--no one disputes it; and yet take a Frenchman
of _your_ class,--the _commis-voyageur_, or anything that way,--and you
'll just find him as prompt on the point of honor as the best noble in
the land. He never utters an insolent speech without being ready to back
it.”
I felt as if I were choking, but I never uttered a word.
“I remember meeting one of those fellows--traveller for some house
in the wine trade--at Avignon. It was at _table d'hote_, and I said
something slighting about Communism, and he replied, '_Monsieur, je suis
Fouriériste_, and you insult me.' Thereupon he sent me his card by the
waiter,--'Paul Déloge, for the house of Gougon, _père et fils_.' I tore
it, and threw it away, saying, 'I never drink Bordeaux wines.' 'What do
you say to a glass of Hermitage, then?' said he, and flung the contents
of his own in my face. Wasn't that very ready? _I_ call it as neat a
thing as could be.”
“And you bore that outrage,” said I, in triumphant delight; “you
submitted to a flagrant insult like that at a public table?”
“I don't know what you call 'bearing it,'” said he; “the thing was done,
and I had only to wipe my face with my napkin.”
“Nothing more?” said I, sneeringly.
“We went out, afterwards, if you mean _that_,” said he, quietly, “and he
ran me through here.” As he spoke, he proceeded, in leisurely fashion,
to unbutton the wrist of his shirt, and, baring his arm midway, showed
me a pinkish cicatrice of considerable extent. “It went, the doctor
said, within a hair's-breadth of the artery.”
I made no comment upon this story. From the moment I heard it, I felt as
though I was travelling with the late Mr. Palmer, of Rugeley. I was as
it were in the company of one who never would have scrupled to dispose
of me, at any moment and in any way that his fancy suggested. My code
respecting the duel was to regard it as the last, the very last, appeal
in the direst emergency of dishonor. The men who regarded it as the
settlement of slight differences, I deemed assassins. They were no more
safe associates for peaceful citizens than a wolf was a meet companion
for a flock of South Downs. The more I ruminated on this theme, the
more indignant grew my resentment, and the question assumed the shape of
asking, “Is the great mass of mankind to be hectored and bullied by some
half-dozen scoundrels with skill at the small sword?” Little knew I that
in the ardor of my indignation I had uttered these words aloud,--spoken
them with an earnest vehemence, looking my fellow-traveller full in the
face, and frowning.
“Scoundrel is strong, eh?” said he, slowly; “_very_ strong!”
“Who spoke of a scoundrel?” asked I, in terror, for his confounded calm,
cold manner made my very blood run chilled.
“Scoundrel is exactly the sort of word,” added he, deliberately, “that
once uttered can only be expiated in one way. You do not give me the
impression of a very bright individual, but certainly you can understand
so much.”
I bowed a dignified assent; my heart was in my mouth as I did it, and
I could not, to save my life, have uttered a word. My predicament was
highly perilous; and all incurred by what?--that passion for adventure
that had led me forth out of a position of easy obscurity into a world
of strife, conflict, and difficulty. Why had I not stayed at home? What
foolish infatuation had ever suggested to me the Quixotism of these
wanderings? Blondel had done it all. Were it not for Blondel, I had
never met Father Dyke, talked myself into a stupid wager, lost what was
not my own; in fact, every disaster sprang out of the one before it,
just as twig adheres to branch and branch to trunk. Shall I make a clean
breast of it, and tell my companion my whole story? Shall I explain to
him that at heart I am a creature of the kindliest impulses and most
generous sympathies, that I overflow with good intentions towards my
fellows, and that the problem I am engaged to solve is how shall I
dispense most happiness? Will he comprehend me? Has he a nature
to appreciate an organization so fine and subtle as mine? Will he
understand that the fairy who endows us with our gifts at birth is
reckoned to be munificent when she withholds only one high quality, and
with me that one was courage? I mean the coarse, vulgar, combative
sort of courage that makes men prizefighters and bargees; for as to
the grander species of courage, I imagine it to be my distinguishing
feature.
The question is, will he give me a patient hearing, for my theory
requires nice handling, and some delicacy in the developing? He may cut
me short in his bluff, abrupt way, and say, “Out with it, old fellow,
you want to sneak out of this quarrel.” What am I to reply? I shall
rejoin: “Sir, let us first inquire if it be a quarrel. From the time of
Atrides down to the Crimean war, there has not been one instance of
a conflict that did not originate in misconceptions, and has not been
prolonged by delusions! Let us take the Peloponnesian war.” A short
grunt beside me here cut short my argumentation. He was fast, sound
asleep, and snoring loudly. My thoughts at once suggested escape. Could
I but get away, I fancied I could find space in the world, never again
to see myself his neighbor.
The train was whirling along between deep chalk cuttings, and at a
furious pace; to leap out was certain death. But was not the same fate
reserved for me if I remained? At last I heard the crank-crank of
the break! We were nearing a station; the earth walls at either side
receded; the view opened; a spire of a church, trees, houses appeared;
and, our speed diminishing, we came bumping, throbbing, and snorting
into a little trim garden-like spot, that at the moment seemed to me a
paradise.
I beckoned to the guard to let me out,--to do it noiselessly I slipped a
shilling into his band. I grasped my knapsack and my wrapper, and stole
furtively away. Oh, the happiness of that moment as the door closed
without awakening him!
“Anywhere--any carriage--what class you please,” muttered I. “There,
yonder,” broke I in, hastily,--“where that lady in mourning has just got
in.”
“All full there, sir,” replied the man; “step in here.”: And away we
went.
My compartment contained but one passenger; he wore a gold band round
his oil-skin cap, and seemed the captain of a mail steamer, or Admiralty
agent; he merely glanced at me as I came in, and went on reading his
newspaper.
“Going north, I suppose?” said he, bluntly, after a pause of some time.
“Going to Germany?”
“No” said I, rather astonished at his giving me this destination. “I 'm
for Brussels.”
“We shall have a rough night of it, outside; glass is falling suddenly,
and the wind has chopped round to the southward and eastward!”
“I'm sorry for it,” said I. “I'm but an indifferent sailor.”
“Well, I 'll tell you what to do: just turn into my cabin, you 'll
have it all to yourself; lie down flat on your back the moment you
get aboard; tell the steward to give you a strong glass of
brandy-and-water--the captain's brandy say, for it is rare old stuff,
and a perfect cordial, and my name ain't Slidders if you don't sleep all
the way across.”
I really had no words for such unexpected generosity; how was I to
believe my ears at such a kind proposal of a perfect stranger? Was it
anything in my appearance that could have marked me out as an object
for these attentions? “I don't know how to thank you enough,” said I, in
confusion; “and when I think that we meet now for the first time--”
“What does that signify?” said he, in the same short way. “I 've met
pretty nigh all of you by this time. I 've been a matter of eleven years
on this station!”
“Met pretty nigh all of us!” What does that mean? Who and what are we?
He can't mean the Pottses, for I 'm the first who ever travelled even
thus far! But I was not given leisure to follow up the inquiry, for he
went on to say how in all that time of eleven years he had never seen
threatenings of a worse night than that before us.
“Then why venture out?” asked I, timidly.
“They must have the bags over there; that's the reason,” said he,
curtly: “besides, who's to say when he won't meet dirty weather at
sea,--one takes rough and smooth in this life, eh?”
The observation was not remarkable for originality, but I liked it. I
like the reflective turn, no matter how beaten the path it may select
for its exercise.
“It's a short trip,--some five or six hours at most,” said he; “but
it's wonderful what ugly weather one sees in it. It's always so in these
narrow seas.”
“Yes,” said I, concurringly, “these petty channels, like the small
events of our life, are often the sources of our greatest perils.”
He gave a little short grunt: it might have been assent, and it might
possibly have been a rough protest against further moralizing; at all
events, he resumed his paper, and read away without speaking. I had time
to examine him well, now, at my leisure, and there was nothing in his
face that could give me any clew to the generous nature of his offer
to me. No, he was a hard-featured, weather-beaten, rather stern sort of
man, verging on fifty seven or eight. He looked neither impulsive nor
confiding, and there was in the shape of his mouth, and the curve of the
lines around it, that peremptory and almost cruel decision that marks
the sea-captain. “Well,” thought I, “I must seek the explanation of the
riddle elsewhere. The secret sympathy that moved him must have its root
in _me_; and, after all, history has never told that the dolphins
who were charmed by Orpheus were peculiar dolphins, with any special
fondness for music, or an ear for melody; they were ordinary creatures
of the deep,--fish, so to say, taken _ex-medio acervo_ of delphinity.
The marvel of their captivation lay in the spell of the enchanter. It
was the thrilling touch of _his_ fingers, the tasteful elegance of _his_
style, the voluptuous inthralment of the sounds _he_ awakened, that
worked the miracle. This man of the sea has, therefore, been struck
by something in my air, bearing, or address; one of those mysterious
sympathies which are the hidden motives that guide half our lives, had
drawn him to me, and he said to himself, 'I like that man. I have met
more pretentious people, I have seen persons who desire to dominate and
impose more than he, but there is that about him that somehow appeals
to the instincts of my nature, and I can say I feel myself his friend
already.'”
As I worked at my little theory, with all the ingenuity I knew how to
employ on such occasions, I perceived that he had put up his newspaper,
and was gathering together, in old traveller fashion, the odds and ends
of his baggage.
“Here we are,” said he, as we glided into the station, “and in capital
time too. Don't trouble yourself about your traps. My steward will be
here presently, and take all your things down to the packet along with
my own. Our steam is up; so lose no time in getting aboard.”
I had never less inclination to play the loiterer. The odious _attaché_
was still in my neighborhood, and until I had got clear out of his reach
I felt anything but security. _He_, I remembered, was for Calais, so
that, by taking the Ostend boat, I was at once separating myself from
his detestable companionship. I not only, therefore, accepted the
captain's offer to leave all my effects to the charge of the steward;
but no sooner had the train stopped, than I sprang out, hastened through
the thronged station, and made at all my speed for the harbor.
Is it to increase the impediments to quitting one's country, and, by
interposing difficulties, to give the exile additional occasion to think
twice about expatriating himself, that the way from the railroad to the
dock at Dover is made so circuitous and almost impossible to discover?
Are these obstacles invented in the spirit of those official details
which make banns on the church-door, and a delay of three weeks precede
a marriage, as though to say, Halt, impetuous youth, and bethink you
whither you are going? Are these amongst the wise precautions of a truly
paternal rule? If so, they must occasionally even transcend the original
intention, for when I reached the pier, the packet had already begun to
move, and it was only by a vigorous leap that I gained the paddle-box,
and thus scrambled on board.
“Like every one of you,” growled out my weather-beaten friend; “always
within an ace of being left behind.”
“Every one of us!” muttered I. “What can he have known of the Potts
family, that he dares to describe us thus characteristically? And who
ever presumed to call us loiterers or sluggards?”
“Step down below, as I told you,” whispered he. “It's a dirty night, and
we shall have bucketing weather outside.” And with this friendly hint I
at once complied, and stole down the ladder. “Show that gentleman into
my stateroom, steward,” called he out from above. “Mix him something
warm, and look after him.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” was the brisk reply, as the bustling man of brandy and
basins threw open a small door, and ushered me into a little den, with
a mingled odor of tar, Stilton, and wet mackintoshes. “All to yourself
here, sir,” said he, and vanished.