And Mr. Jericho went on, a rejoicing conqueror. His huge town
mansion, burning with gold—the very domain of upholstery, massive,
rich and gorgeous, for the Man of Money was for the most substantial,
the most potent development of his creed, whereby to awe and oppress
his worshippers—his house, in its wide hospitality, embraced, as
Jericho devoutly believed, the world. Let all mankind outside his
walls suddenly sink and die, and he would be convinced that still
under his roof-tree were gathered together all the men and women who
composed the heart, the kernel of human life. The earth might be
replenished and set up again all the better, the finer; both for what
was lost, and what was spared. The kernel might grow kernels, without
husk or straw.
And comfortable, happy people, with the bread of competence and
the butter of comfort inch-thick, would nevertheless marvel at the
imagined happiness, the life-long rapture of Jericho. And honest,
well-to-do folk, from country homes would stare at Jericho House
as though it was made of a single diamond cut into chambers and
banquetting-halls: for it was to them a magnified Mountain of Light,
albeit they had never heard of the jewel. And London paupers stared
at the walls, as though they saw in them a strange, fantastic
reflection of their own rags and wretchedness; and took a savage
pleasure, a malicious joy in seeing their hungry faces flung back
from the House of Gold. And there were others who delighted, though
they tasted not of his labours, in all that Jericho did: they
instinctively loved him for his money, although they had no hope of
a farthing of it. Nevertheless was he to them a mighty power—a great
presence; one of the wonders of our mortal state. Could Mr. Jericho
have papered the sky with bank-notes, these impartial admirers would
have sung praises to the work and the workman. It would have been
a marvellous triumph of wealth; to be honoured by the well-to-do
accordingly.
Nevertheless, so headstrong, so self-destructive was Basil
Pennibacker, that he refused to cross the threshold of Jericho House.
He resolved to break for ever with the Man of Money. He had made his
last essay upon his own spirit; and impulsive and indignant, it rose
above the politic restraint. He would touch no farthing of Jericho’s
means; he would, in his own want, be nevertheless his own man of
money.
Basil sat in his chamber writing. A letter lay before him. It was
from his mother—the last of many, sent day after day—entreating him
to Jericho House. All the world would be there only too glad to show
delight upon the occasion; for it was Basil’s birth-day. On that day,
he came of age. On that day, he gave a quittance to natural and legal
guardians; and became invested with the rights of citizen. On that
day, in Basil’s own words, he was free to sit down in Parliament, if
he could only find a seat. On that day, he took possession of man’s
estate—with _his_ purposes and aspirations, a glorious heritage! And
Basil proposed to keep his birth-day in finest state, too, though
not at the board of his legal father. And this determination he
had again written—had folded and scaled the letter, when the clock
struck twelve. Basil rose to his feet at the first stroke, and,
with self-communing looks, paused until the hour was told. In that
brief space, he had entered into a compact with his heart, and—with
uplifted eyes—silently asked for strength to maintain it.
Basil then cast a heap of papers in the flames—letters and other
records of his dead, disowned life—and, as he stood leaning at the
fireside, watching the destruction of notes and recollections once
so treasured; as he looked down upon the curling flames, and now
and then tossed back some scattered fragments to the burning heap,
he laughed a moment as in contempt of his olden idols—for he had
worn some of those things in his bosom, had kissed them with his
lips, had read their words, as though he caught their syllables from
speaking mouths. And now he laughed; and the next moment a grave look
rebuked the levity. The flames went out; the papers were consumed;
and casting one look at their ashes, specked with dying fire, Basil
went to his rest. He had fulfilled his self-promise; had accomplished
his first work. He had, as he purposed, seen his birth-day in alone:
in due and solemn state—as he was fain in after-times to avow; with
preparation and with ceremony befitting the crowning One-and-Twenty.
Basil rose early on his birth-day. He was up and out; for he feared
to be waylaid by his mother and sisters—and he had resolved, and it
was hardly the day to begin with weakness, not to be made the show at
Jericho House. And he felt anger, pity, that Bessy and her father and
mother—the girl so sweet, so gentle; the old man with so cheery and
strong a heart; and the wife so soft and patient, with not a frown or
angry word for fortune—should be forgotten, cast aside like holiday
garments sported and worn out:—that his mother and sisters should
do this—should value his love for the daughter of a ruined man, as
a mere caprice—a wayward generosity, which, with any other youthful
freak, would last its time, and then subside and die—gave him the
heart-ache, not unmixed with shame—the sharp shame that comes with
blushes for those we love.
Basil, we say, left home early, resolved in his own fashion to
celebrate his coming of age. It was the first day he showed to the
world,—a citizen. He had determined to strip himself for the race
of life, casting aside all needless trappings; all foolish cumbrous
pride; all vanities, that at their best bladdery lightness, take much
room; and sometimes, make much idle noise. He would start in his
path like a runner in his course. But he shall give the history of
the day—an odd, curious day for a newly-risen heir—in his own words.
He shall give it as he narrated it years after; when the flush of
youth had passed from his brow; and in manly maturity of strength
and beauty, with some forty years descended with grace and goodness
on his head; some forty years hardening his cheek; and looking with
sober sweetness from his eyes,—he told the story of his twenty-first
birth-day, to his eldest boy aged eighteen.
“It was after this manner, Basil”—for the boy though some time
distant from the world, is upon arrival to have his father’s
name—“after this manner, boy.
“Up and early through the city to the fields; and there, in the eye
of God, my knees upon their kindred clay, my spirit seeking its
hoped-for home—I asked a blessing on the day. I prayed that my heart
might feel the freshness of life, even as my body felt in every limb
the freshness of the morning earth. I prayed that my soul might be
lighted, even as my sight, with the glory that from the gates of
heaven streamed upon the world. I prayed that I might carry through
my days the mingled feelings of that time.—The constant touch of
earth that warned me whence I came—the flooding light of heaven that
showed me where I’d go.
“And then, Basil, I walked about the fields, and began to school
myself—making little moralities by the way—to see nothing common
in my path, wheresoever it fell—still to wonder at a blade of
grass, with its thousand veins, carrying up and down the nourishing
green blood. And then, I would lay down awhile, and listen to the
lark—there is a mighty orchestra in fields and woods, if we would but
cultivate the ear to attend to the musicians,—listen until my blood
throbbed in my ears, and I sprang to the earth, bounding with joy
and life. And then, I peeped in and out of hedges, plucking little
gentle, bashful flowers, that looked so beautiful in the light, and
preached this lesson—one of the many of the day—to him who plucked
them; to look tenderly, thoughtfully for humble worth,—the hedge
flowers of the world; the very poor relations, but still relations,
of the lilies of the field.
“After an hour or two, I felt it must be time for breakfast; and
I resolved to take the meal in patriarchal state. And I moreover
resolved, on this day, to take a lesson of temperance. So I pitched
upon a little bit of a hillock, no higher than a woolsack, with a
tall poplar in the middle of it. Well, I lay myself down, and laid
my breakfast. Rolls, and butter, a bottle of milk and hard eggs. But
the moment I was about to fall to, a bird, perched on the top branch
of the tree, piped away, as though giving me especial welcome to his
breakfast parlour: pausing to acknowledge the creature’s civility, my
breakfast still remained untasted. Just as the music was finished, a
miserable woman—a moving bundle of rags—with three children, crawled
round a corner of the hedge and paused, and for the moment, seeing
my breakfast, looked as though they beheld the Land of Promise (if,
indeed, such misery had been ever cheered with the tidings of it).
“And now there were four unexpected guests—four hungry mouths that,
without uttering a syllable, had declared for my breakfast. The
wretched woman’s eyes shone with an uncomfortable light; a glittering
sharpness, as she saw the food. And the children though they never
stirred a foot—the bread and butter seemed to drag their hungry heads
and shoulders forward. A grand opportunity this for self-discipline.
Providence had so ordered it, that I might open my Twenty-First
Birth-Day in a goodly and hopeful manner. I gladly acknowledged the
occasion; and, at a word, called the woman and her children to the
outspread meal—there was not enough for all of us—and yielding my
place, departed. It was plain the woman thought me mad. She watched
me as I ascended the hill; and—I could see—wondering at the stranger,
sat down with her children, doubtless thanking her fortune that had
that day sent her a lunatic. And this was my breakfast when I came of
age—so began my trial birth-day.
“I made my way back to the town, that I might go on with my lessons:
for I determined to study one matter or the other until I returned to
bed. I walked in the Park. There was a drill-serjeant at work with
a score or so of young recruits; human clods in scarlet livery. It
was odd, and in my humour, sad to see with what pains and care the
master-man thumped and punched and rapped and rebuked his louting,
goggling, shambling, prentices. With what serene stupidity they took
a tap upon the knuckles, as though the cane was some light prettiness
of office—some radiant peacock’s feather; nought uglier or heavier,
descending. Curious, too, to see how contentedly these lumps of
men would swallow an oath and curse flung at them, as though the
blasphemy and malediction were an expected part and portion of their
daily bread. And so these civil babes and sucklings were swathed and
bandaged, and set upon their legs, and taught to walk, and shoot, and
stab, and—upon severe occasions—to throw firebrands among cottage
thatch, and bomb-shells upon consecrated churches. And I thought this
a sad sight; spectacle of folly, and crime, and ignorance. And I
determined, for my life forward, whenever I heard of glory, to think
and speak of it, as an evil in the ornaments of greatness—a harlot
in jewels and a crown; and these filched from the transmuted toil of
the peasant and the craftsman. And this was the next lesson of my
birth-day.
“Then I wandered to a famous spot.—It was where, in the olden time,
the great grim men in power—who wore authority, as though authority
should have the look and manners of an ogre, not of a sage—set up
the pillory wherein men were punished for having souls with more
than the proper daring and stubbornness of souls. Souls that would
have their own opinions, as their masters had their own teeth; to
digest for themselves, and not take in the spoon’s-meat of power,
with thankful looks for what was given them. And the bodies corrupted
with these wicked and rebellious souls were placed in the pillory—and
approaching the spot, I bowed to the place; the martyr-field of
opinion. And—perhaps, it was that I was hungry, and with empty
stomachs, men, they say, have sometimes wandering heads, but my
son”—(the reader, we trust, has not forgotten that Basil is all
the while talking in this page by anticipation—compelled to do so
by the tyranny of the quill, to his unborn boy Basil, junior)—“but
my son, I winked, and when I looked again, there, indeed, was the
pillory: but not the pillory of punishment; not the dry, meagre
wood; the hungry flesh-devouring timber.—No: the blood that had run
about it carried strange virtue with it; a strange excellence, under
the brooding wings of time. The naked wood imbibed the stream; and
the bare pillory became leafy as laurel, and fruitful as the vine:
the leaves of a strange sort, but undying; and filled with a sweet
perfume that scented far around. And the fruit was of a curious, a
delicious kind; bite and bite as you would, the lovely pulp returned,
the wound healed; now bitten, and now whole. Well, my boy, having
had my day-dream—my vision of the pillory—I learned to strive to
look backward with thankful looks: I learned to read the suffering
of the man by the light of his time, and—with all love for the
living—to have gratitude for the dead. We are too apt to bury our
accounts along with our benefactors; to enjoy the triumphs of others,
as though they were the just property of ourselves. Now, to think
against this, was another lesson—a lesson learned in the Place of
Pillory—of my birth-day.
“And then I looked into a Court of Law—then into a Church—then went
upon ’Change,—and in every place tried to divide man from his double
or false man—from the artificial twin-self that so often walks about
the world with him in profane places, and sometimes in sacred temples.
“And I went into miserable lanes, where human creatures styed like
swine, had little beyond the swine’s instinct,—to eat and drink, and
gabble brutishly. And even here, I learnt to reverence the human
heart, for, in some foul place, some very nest of misery,—there,
it would flourish in its best beauty, giving out even in such an
atmosphere the sweets of love, and charity, and resignation. It was
in one of these places, I took a crust for my dinner; and tried to
swallow a life-long lesson of patience, and contentment with the meal.
“And this and these were the lessons I tried to learn on my
twenty-first birth-day. Coming to man’s estate, I lost no time, you
see, but set out to contemplate for that day what it was that lay
about me.”
* * * * *
The reader, who has advanced somewhat more than eighteen years, to
read the foregoing confession, will be pleased to turn back on the
road, it is to be hoped satisfied with the employment of Basil, whom
we left at early morn setting out for his birth-day work. We take
it there are few who thus upon the threshold of manhood welcome
one-and-twenty. Who knows? The example of Basil may beget followers.
Early the next morning, Basil took his road to Primrose Place. He
had resolved at once to ask Bessy of her father. He would not accept
a shilling of Jericho; he would not compromise his conscience by
submitting to the poorest obligation at his hands; nevertheless, he
felt in his heart such a spring-tide of hope and happiness, that
the worst worldly difficulties were but as a hedge of thorns, to be
thrust aside by an arm of resolution.
Mr. Carraways was alone: deep in his book; and more and more
assured that he was securing a stock of knowledge that should make
him flourish at the antipodes. It was a little late, as poor Mrs.
Carraways would meekly, sadly suggest, for such removal; but the
old man with every day and hour, assured his wife—assured Bessy,
who though she tried to smile and look content, pined and withered
beneath the sentence—that it was the only place for broken men to
grow whole again. They would yet see him in the fulness of fortune;
and he would yet leave his girl with the dowry of a lady.
“Good morning, Basil,” said the old man, with somewhat forced
politeness; for though he had a true regard for the youth he cared
not to see him so often at Primrose Place as in old times at Jogtrot
Lodge. However, the ship would sail soon, and, with this thought,
Carraways called up his old look of cordiality, and gave his old
grasp of the hand. “Why, you are out early for a reveller, eh? After
your doings, last night?”
Basil stared. He then remembered: Carraways doubtless spoke of the
festival held at Jericho House, in honour of the absent. He would not
explain this. He merely said—“I take but little sleep, sir.”
“Humph! How’s that?” asked Carraways. “But the fact is, Basil, you
seem changed altogether. I sometimes think that one of the judges has
lost his gravity, and you’ve picked it up: for after all, it doesn’t
seem very well to fit you. I hardly know if I like you so well in it
as in the boy suit. However, you’re right, lad. Be grave betimes:
’tis best, and prepares you before hand for the knocks that are
certain to come. Though, to be sure, if a man may count upon a bright
and easy road—a path of diamond dust with rosebud borders, like the
gardens in the fairy book—you are the man.”
“Indeed, sir,” and Basil shook his head, “I think—that is, I know you
mistake my path of life. ’Tis not so fine; and more, I hope not so
tedious as that you see for me. In a word, I shall owe nothing to Mr.
Jericho.”
“Indeed! What, quarrelled with him? I’m sorry for that. You should
remember your interest, Basil.”
“There, my good sir, without a thought you speak a wisdom that,
with a thought, you despise. I shall try to make interest one with
honesty; if it succeeds, why, the profits will bring the best sweets
of gain; if it fails, why still it leaves something behind; it is not
all beggary.”
“Very good, very excellent, Basil”—said Carraways—“nevertheless, you
must not cast away Mr. Jericho. He is a strange man, no doubt. If
half that’s said of him be true, a very strange man. But then again
only that very half, said of the most of us, would make a deuced
alteration in the best looking,—the most punctual and respectable.
Therefore, not half—no, not a twentieth part that’s said—is to be
listened to. Nevertheless Basil”—and, despite of himself, Carraways
looked grave, and felt the craving of curiosity—“nevertheless do you
know, it is all about the world that your father-in-law, a few days
since, received a pistol-bullet through his heart, and that moreover
his heart has a hole through it at this very moment?”
“Yes, I have heard the story,” said Basil. “One of the jokes of”—
“Ha! Well, I thought so; a joke is it? Bessy would have it that it
meant nothing more than a fable—or hieroglyphic—or something of that
sort. Of course, I knew that. I knew a man couldn’t live with a hole
in his heart,” for all which Carraways seemed a little disappointed
at Basil’s half-explanation at the moment. Common truth fell like
cold water upon the awakened fancy of the old merchant; with the
greater shock, as it was rare indeed that he laid himself out for an
enjoyment of the extraordinary.
“And now, sir,” said Basil, and he almost trembled as he spoke, “I
wish to address you upon the dearest question of my life.”
“Bless me!” said Carraways, and he gravely seated himself, and
motioned Basil to a chair. Then the old man, with a slight tremor of
hand, wiped his spectacles, replaced them on his nose, cleared his
throat, clasped his hands, and endeavoured to look the very study
of easy, unconscious courtesy—placid and polite. And at the time
the colour was tingling in his cheeks, and he felt his heart beat
distinctly, painfully.
In few stammering words, speech running freer as it flowed, Basil
spoke of his affection for Bessy. All that has been said since the
first father was first asked for the first daughter—if the reader
be capable of the task, may be imagined; and the most eloquent and
affectionate phrases assorted from the mountain of words, to piece
out at the bravest and best the declaration of Basil. At length he
paused. Carraways pressed his hand, and looked mournfully in the
young man’s face.
“My dear young man,” said the father, “once, when the fortune was of
our side, I should have been glad to hear this. I should have been
proud of you as a husband for Bessy. Now, it can’t be.”
“Why not? Indeed, dear sir, I”.—
“We have not a shilling, Mr. Pennibacker. Not a shilling. We have
just scraped together a loan—a gratuity—alms—whatever the world may
call it, to take ourselves out of the way. I will not quarter my
family upon your relations. Quarter! Why, ’twould be the town-talk
that that cunning old fox Carraways had gulled a foolish boy—the Man
of Money’s son—to marry a beggar girl. And all to end his own days in
clover. No, sir; no. You’re very good, Basil; you mean this honestly,
nobly; I’m sure you do; but you’ll think better of it; and with
the prospects that await you—with the part you have to play in the
world—in a little while, you’ll thank me for refusing you.”
“No, sir, no: for your refusal—though I can fully value the integrity
of its meaning—will change into consent, when you become assured that
no influence, no argument of wealth or station, can make me debtor
to Mr. Jericho for a single shilling. I will provide for my wife—for
Bessy”—
“You are very good,” said Carraways, melting somewhat at the passion
of the youth, “very good; but the fact is, my dear lad—and make
your mind up once and all to hear it—the fact is, Bessy is already
provided for.”
“Provided! Already!” cried Basil, and the young man turned pale as a
corpse, and shook from head to limb.
Carraways was yet more affected by the youth’s emotion. Kindly he
took Basil’s hand—“I mean, my good boy—don’t mistake me, I wouldn’t
be mistaken; for I can live back my life”—and the old man’s eyes
glistened, and his voice trembled—“live it back in my memory to the
very moment, when I asked for Bessy’s mother,—and I—I can feel for
you, my lad; believe it, Basil; I can, boy—I can,” and Carraways
stood shaking Basil’s hand, his eyes swimming the while,—begging him
to dismiss the matter from his mind, and be “a good boy and a man.”
“I entreat you, good sir—I entreat you, by the precious memories you
speak of—tell me what it is you mean! Bessy provided”—
“I mean with a—a ship,” said Carraways, with forced cheerfulness.
“A ship?” exclaimed Basil.
“Yes—a ship,” answered Carraways. “And I remember, I have an
appointment with the Captain. So if you will, you shall walk part of
the way with me?” A proposition that, as the reader will conclude,
the politic lover immediately assented to.