I was in a tourist locality, and easily provided myself with a light
equipment for the road, resolved at once to take the footpath in life
and “seek my fortune.” I use these words simply as the expression of the
utter uncertainty which prevailed as to whither I should go, and what do
when I got there.
If there be few more joyous things in life than to start off on foot
with three or four choice companions, to ramble through some fine
country rich in scenery, varied in character and interesting in story,
there are few more lonely sensations than to set out by oneself, not
very decided what way to take, and with very little money to take it.
One of the most grievous features of small means is, certainly, the
almost exclusive occupation it gives the mind as to every, even the most
trivial, incident that involves cost. Instead of dining on fish and fowl
and fruit, you feel eating so many groschen and kreutzers. You are not
drinking wine, your beverage is a solution of copper batzen in vinegar!'
When you poke the fire, every spark that flies up the chimney' is a
baiocco! You come at last to suspect that the sun won't warm you for
nothing, and that the very breeze that cooled your brow is only waiting
round the corner to ask “for something for himself.”
When the rich man lives sparingly, the conscious power of the wealth he
might employ if he pleased, sustains him. The poor fellow has no such
consolation to fall back on; the closer his coat is examined, the more
threadbare will it appear. If it were simply that he dressed humbly
and fared coarsely, it might be borne well, but it is the hourly
depreciation that poverty is exposed to, makes its true grievance. “An
ill-looking”--this means, generally, ill-dressed--“an ill-looking fellow
had been seen about the premises at night-fall,” says the police report
“A very suspicious character had asked for a bed; his wardrobe was in
a 'spotted handkerchief.' The waiter remembers that a fellow, much
travel-stained and weary, stopped at the door that evening and asked if
there was any cheap house of entertainment in the village.” Heaven help
the poor wayfarer if any one has been robbed, any house broken into,
any rick set fire to, while he passed through that locality. There is
no need of a crowd of witnesses to convict him, since every bend in his
hat, every tear in his coat, and every rent in his shoes are evidence
against him.
If I thought over these things in sorrow and humiliation, it was in a
very proud spirit that I called to mind how, on that same morning, I
deposited the bag with all the money in Messrs. Haber's bank, saw the
contents duly counted over, replaced and sealed up, and then addressed
to Her Majesty's Minister at Kalbbratonstadt, taking a receipt for the
same. “This was only just common honesty,” says the reader. Oh, if there
is an absurd collocation of words, it is that! Common honesty! why,
there is nothing in this world so perfectly, so totally uncommon! Never,
I beseech you, undervalue the waiter who restores the ring you dropped
in the coffee-room; nor hold him cheaply who gives back the umbrella
you left in the cab. These seem such easy things to do, but they are
not easy. Men are more or less Cornish wreckers in life, and very apt to
regard the lost article as treasure-trove. I have said all this to you,
amiable reader, that you may know what it cost me, on that same morning,
not to be a rogue, and not to enrich myself with the goods of another.
I underwent a very long and searching self-examination to ascertain
why it was I had not appropriated that bag,--an offence which, legally
speaking, would only amount to a breach of trust. I said, “Is it that
you had no need of the money, Potts? Did you feel that your own means
were ample enough? Was it that your philosophy had made you regard gold
as mere dross, and then think that the load was a burden? Or, taking
higher ground, had you recalled the first teachings of your venerable
parent, that good man and careful apothecary, who had given you your
first perceptions of right and wrong?” I fear that I was obliged to say
No, in turn, to each of these queries. I would have been very glad to be
right, proud to have been a philosopher, overjoyed to feel myself swayed
by moral motives, but I could not palm the imposition on my conscience,
and had honestly to own that the real reason of my conduct was--I was in
love! There was the whole of it!
There was an old sultan once so impressed with an ill notion of the sex,
that whenever a tale of misfortune or disgrace reached him, his
only inquiry as to the source of the evil was, Who was she? Now, my
experiences of life have travelled in another direction, and whenever I
read of some noble piece of heroism or some daring act of self-devotion,
I don't ask whether he got the Bath or the Victoria Cross, if he were
made a governor here or a vice-governor there, but who was She that
prompted this glorious deed? I 'd like to know all about _her_: the
color of her eyes, her hair; was she slender or plump; was she fiery
or gentle; was it an old attachment or an acute attack coming after a
paroxysm at first sight?
If I were the great chief of some great public department where all my
subordinates were obliged to give heavy security for their honesty, I
would neither ask for bail bonds or sureties, but I'd say, “Have you got
a wife, or a sweetheart? Either will do. Let me look at her. If she be
worthy an honest man's love, I am satisfied; mount your high stool and
write away.”
Oh, how I longed to stand aright in that dear girl's eyes, that she
should see me worthy of her! Had she yielded to all my wayward notions
and rambling opinions, giving way either in careless indolence or out of
inability to dispute them, she had never made the deep impression on
my heart. It was because she had bravely asserted her own independence,
never conceding where unconvinced, never yielding where unvanquished,
that I loved her. What a stupid revery was that of mine when I fancied
her one of those strong-minded, determined women,--a thickly shod,
umbrella-carrying female, who can travel alone and pass her trunk
through a custom-house. No, she was delicate, timid, and gentle; there
was no over-confidence in her, nor the slightest pretension. Rule me?
Not a bit of it. Guide, direct, support, confirm, sustain me; elevate
my sentiments, cheer me on my road in life, making all evil odious in my
eyes, and the good to seem better!
I verily believe, with such a woman, an humble condition m life offers
more chances of happiness than a state of wealth and splendor. If
the best prizes of life are to be picked up around a man's fireside,
moderate means, conducing as they do to a home life, would point more
certainly to these than all the splendor of grand receptions. If I
were, say, a village doctor, a schoolmaster; if I were able to eke
out subsistence in some occupation, whose pursuit might place me
sufficiently favorably in her eyes. I don't like grocery, for instance,
or even “dry goods,” but something--it's no fault of mine if the English
language be cramped and limited, and that I must employ the odious word
“genteel,” but it conveys, in a fashion, all that I aim at.
I began to think how this was to be done. I might return to my own
country, go back to Dublin, and become Potts and Son,--at least son! A
very horrid thought and very hard to adopt.
I might take a German degree in physic, and become an English doctor,
say at Baden, Ems, Geneva, or some other resort of my countrymen on the
Continent. I might give lectures, I scarcely well knew on what,
still less to whom; or I could start as Professor Potts, and instruct
foreigners in Shakspeare. There were at least “three courses” open to
me; and to consider them the better, I filled my pipe, and strolled off
the high-road into a shady copse of fine beech-trees, at the foot of one
of which, and close to a clear little rivulet, I threw myself at full
length, and thus, like Tityrus, enjoyed the leafy shade, making my
meerschaum do duty for the shepherd's reed.
I had not been long thus, when I heard the footsteps of some persons on
the road, and shortly after, the sound discontinuing, I judged that
they must have crossed into the sward beneath the wood. As I listened I
detected voices, and the next moment two figures emerged from the cover
and stood before me: they were Vaterchen and Tintefleck.
“Sit down,” said I, pointing to each in turn to take a place at either
side of me. They had, it is true, been the cause of the great calamity
of my life, but in no sense was the fault theirs, and I wished to show
that I was generous and open-minded. Vaterchen acceded to my repeated
invitation with a courteous humility, and seated himself at a little
distance off; but Tintefleck threw herself on the grass, and with such a
careless _abandon_ that her hair escaped from the net that held it, and
fell in great wavy masses across my feet.
“Ay,” thought I, as I looked at the graceful outlines of her finely
shaped figure, “here is the Amaryllis come to complete the tableau; only
I would wish fewer spangles, and a little more simplicity.”
I saw that it was necessary to reassure Vaterchen as to my perfect
sanity by some explanation as to my strange mode of travelling, and told
him briefly, “that it was a caprice common enough with my countrymen to
assume the knapsack, and take the road on foot; that we fancied in
this wise we obtained a nearer view of life, and at least gained
companionship with many from whom the accident of station might exclude
us.” I said this with an artful delicacy, meant to imply that I was
pointing at a very great and valuable privilege of pedestrianism.
He smiled with a sad, a very sad expression on his features, “But
in what wise, highly honored sir?”--he addressed me always as Hoch
Geehrter Herr,--“could you promise to yourself advantage from such
associations as these? I cannot believe you would condescend to know
us simply to carry away in memory the little traits that must needs
distinguish such lives as ours. I would not insult my respect for you by
supposing that you come amongst us to note the absurd contrast between
our real wretchedness and our mock gayety; and yet what else is there to
gain? What can the poor mountebank teach you beyond this?”
“Much,” said I, with fervor, as I grasped his hand, and shook it
heartily; “much, if you only gave me this one lesson that I now listen
to, and I learn that a man's heart can beat as truthfully under motley
as under the embroidered coat of a minister. The man who speaks as you
do, can teach me much.”
He gave a short but heavy sigh, and turned away his head. He arose
after a few minutes, and, going gently across the grass, spread his
handkerchief over the head and face of the girl, who had at once fallen
into a deep sleep.
“Poor thing,” muttered he, “it is well she _can_ sleep! She has eaten
nothing to-day!”
“But, surely,” said I, “there is some village, or some wayside inn near
this--”
“Yes, there is the 'Eckstein,' a little public about two miles further;
but we did n't care to reach it before nightfall. It is so painful
to pass many hours in a place and never call for anything; one is
ill-looked on, and uncomfortable from it; and as we have only what would
pay for our supper and lodging, we thought we 'd wear away the noon in
the forest here, and arrive at the inn by close of day.”
“Let me be your travelling-companion for to-day,” said I, “and let us
push forward and have our dinner together. Tes, yes, there is far less
of condescension in the offer than you suspect. I am neither great nor
milor, I am one of a class like your own, Vaterchen, and what I do for
you today some one else will as probably do for me to-morrow.”
Say what I could, the old man would persist in believing that this was
only another of those eccentricities for which Englishmen are famed;
and though, with the tact of a native good breeding, he showed no
persistence in opposition, I saw plainly enough that he was unconvinced
by all my arguments.
While the girl slept, I asked him how he chanced upon the choice of
his present mode of life, since there were many things in his tone and
manner that struck me as strangely unlike what I should have ascribed to
his order.
“It is a very short story,” said he; “five minutes will tell it,
otherwise I might scruple to impose on your patience. It was thus I
became what you see me.”
Short as the narrative was, I must keep it for another page.