Before Tom Dill had set out on his errand he had learned all about his
father and sister's dinner engagement; nor did the contrast with the
way in which his own time was to be passed at all improve his temper.
Indeed, he took the opportunity of intimating to his mother how few
favors fell to her share or his own,--a piece of information she very
philosophically received, all her sympathies being far more interested
for the sorrows of “Clarissa Harlowe” than for any incident that
occurred around her. Poor old lady! she had read that story over and
over again, till it might seem that every word and every comma in it had
become her own; but she was blessed with a memory that retained nothing,
and she could cry over the sorrowful bits, and pant with eagerness at
the critical ones, just as passionately, just as fervently, as she had
done for years and years before. Dim, vague perceptions she might
have retained of the personages, but these only gave them a stronger
truthfulness, and made them more like the people of the real world, whom
she had seen, passingly, once, and was now to learn more about. I
doubt if Mezzofanti ever derived one tenth of the pleasure from all his
marvellous memory that she did from the want of one.
Blessed with that one book, she was proof against all the common
accidents of life. It was her sanctuary against duns, and difficulties,
and the doctor's temper. As the miser feels a sort of ecstasy in
the secret of his hoarded wealth, so had she an intense enjoyment in
thinking that all dear Clarissa's trials and sufferings were only known
to her. Neither the doctor, nor Polly, nor Tom, so much as suspected
them. It was like a confidence between Mr. Richardson and herself, and
for nothing on earth would she have betrayed it.
Tom had no such resources, and he set out on his mission with no very
remarkable good feeling towards the world at large. Still, Polly had
pressed into his hand a gold half-guinea,--some very long-treasured
keepsake, the birthday gift of a godmother in times remote, and now to
be converted into tobacco and beer, and some articles of fishing-gear
which he greatly needed.
Seated in one of those light canoe-shaped skiffs,--“cots,” as they are
called on these rivers,--he suffered himself to be carried lazily along
by the stream, while he tied his flies and adjusted his tackle. There
is, sometimes, a stronger sense of unhappiness attached to what is
called being “hardly used” by the world, than to a direct palpable
misfortune; for though the sufferer may not be able, even to his own
heart, to set out, with clearness, one single count in the indictment,
yet a general sense of hard treatment, unfairness, and so forth, brings
with it great depression, and a feeling of desolation.
Like all young fellows of his stamp, Tom only saw his inflictions, not
one of his transgressions. He knew that his father made a common drudge
of him, employed him in all that was wearisome and even menial in his
craft, admitted him to no confidences, gave him no counsels, and treated
him in every way like one who was never destined to rise above the
meanest cares and lowest duties. Even those little fleeting glances at
a brighter future which Polly would now and then open to his ambition,
never came from his father, who would actually ridicule the notion of
his obtaining a degree, and make the thought of a commission in the
service a subject for mockery.
He was low in heart as he thought over these things. “If it were not for
Polly,” so he said to himself, “he 'd go and enlist;” or, as his boat
slowly floated into a dark angle of the stream where the water was still
and the shadow deep, he even felt he could do worse. “Poor Polly!” said
he, as he moved his hand to and fro in the cold clear water, “you 'd be
very, very sorry for me. You, at least, knew that I was not all bad, and
that I wanted to be better. It was no fault of mine to have a head that
could n't learn. I 'd be clever if I could, and do everything as well as
she does; but when they see that I have no talents, that if they put the
task before me I cannot master it, sure they ought to pity me, not blame
me.” And then he bent over the boat and looked down eagerly into the
water, till, by long dint of gazing, he saw, or he thought he saw, the
gravelly bed beneath; and again he swept his hand through it,--it was
cold, and caused a slight shudder. Then, suddenly, with some fresh
impulse, he threw off his cap, and kicked his shoes from him. His
trembling hands buttoned and unbuttoned his coat with some infirm,
uncertain purpose. He stopped and listened; he heard a sound; there was
some one near,--quite near. He bent down and peered under the branches
that hung over the stream, and there he saw a very old and infirm man,
so old and infirm that he could barely creep. He had been carrying a
little bundle of fagots for firewood, and the cord had given way, and
his burden fallen, scattered, to the ground. This was the noise Tom
had heard. For a few minutes the old man seemed overwhelmed with his
disaster, and stood motionless, contemplating it; then, as it were,
taking courage, he laid down his staff, and bending on his knees, set
slowly to work to gather up his fagots.
There are minutes in the lives of all of us when some simple
incident will speak to our hearts with a force that human words never
carried,--when the most trivial event will teach a lesson that all our
wisdom never gave us. “Poor old fellow,” said Tom, “he has a stout heart
left to him still, and he 'll not leave his load behind him!” And then
his own craven spirit flashed across him, and he hid his face in his
hand and cried bitterly.
Suddenly rousing himself with a sort of convulsive shake, he sent
the skiff with a strong shove in shore, and gave the old fellow what
remained to him of Polly's present; and then, with a lighter spirit than
he had known for many a day, rowed manfully on his way.
The evening--a soft, mellow, summer evening--was just falling as Tom
reached the little boat quay at the “Fisherman's Home,”--a spot it was
seldom his fortune to visit, but one for whose woodland beauty and trim
comfort he had a deep admiration. He would have liked to have lingered a
little to inspect the boat-house, and the little aviary over it, and the
small cottage on the island, and the little terrace made to fish from;
but Darby had caught sight of him as he landed, and came hurriedly
down to say that the young gentleman was growing very impatient for his
coming, and was even hinting at sending for another doctor if he should
not soon appear.
If Conyers was as impatient as Darby represented, he had, at least,
surrounded himself with every appliance to allay the fervor of that
spirit He had dined under a spreading sycamore-tree, and now sat with a
table richly covered before him. Fruit, flowers, and wine abounded,
with a profusion that might have satisfied several guests; for, as he
understood that he was to consider himself at an inn, he resolved, by
ordering the most costly things, to give the house all the advantage of
his presence. The most delicious hothouse fruit had been procured from
the gardener of an absent proprietor in the neighborhood, and several
kinds of wine figured on the table, over which, and half shadowed by
the leaves, a lamp had been suspended, throwing a fitful light over all,
that imparted a most picturesque effect to the scene.
And yet, amidst all these luxuries and delights, Bal-shazzar was
discontented; his ankle pained him; he had been hobbling about on it all
day, and increased the inflammation considerably; and, besides this, he
was lonely; he had no one but Darby to talk to, and had grown to feel
for that sapient functionary a perfect abhorrence,--his everlasting
compliance, his eternal coincidence with everything, being a torment
infinitely worse than the most dogged and mulish opposition. When,
therefore, he heard at last the doctor's son had come with the leeches,
he hailed him as a welcome guest.
“What a time you have kept me waiting!” said he, as the loutish young
man came forward, so astounded by the scene before him that he lost all
presence of mind. “I have been looking out for you since three o'clock,
and pottering down the river and back so often, that I have made the leg
twice as thick again.”
“Why didn't you sit quiet?” said Tom, in a hoarse, husky tone.
“Sit quiet!” replied Conyers, staring half angrily at him; and then as
quickly perceiving that no impertinence had been intended, which the
other's changing color and evident confusion attested, he begged him to
take a chair and fill his glass. “That next you is some sort of Rhine
wine: this is sherry; and here is the very best claret I ever tasted.”
“Well, I 'll take that,” said Tom, who, accepting the recommendation
amidst luxuries all new and strange to him, proceeded to fill his glass,
but so tremblingly that he spilled the wine all about the table, and
then hurriedly wiped it up with his handkerchief.
Conyers did his utmost to set his guest at his ease. He passed his
cigar-case across the table, and led him on, as well as he might, to
talk. But Tom was awestruck, not alone by the splendors around him, but
by the condescension of his host; and he could not divest himself of the
notion that he must have been mistaken for somebody else, to whom all
these blandishments might be rightfully due.
“Are you fond of shooting?” asked Conyers, trying to engage a
conversation.
“Yes,” was the curt reply.
“There must be good sport hereabouts, I should say. Is the game well
preserved?”
“Too well for such as me. I never get a shot without the risk of a jail,
and it would be cheaper for me to kill a cow than a woodcock!” There was
a stern gravity in the way he said this that made it irresistibly comic,
and Conyers laughed out in spite of himself.
“Have n't you a game license?” asked he.
“Haven't I a coach-and-six? Where would I get four pounds seven and ten
to pay for it?”
The appeal was awkward, and for a moment Conyers was silent At last he
said, “You fish, I suppose?”
“Yes; I kill a salmon whenever I get a quiet spot that nobody sees me,
and I draw the river now and then with a net at night.”
“That's poaching, I take it.”
“It 's not the worse for that!” said Tom, whose pluck was by this time
considerably assisted by the claret.
“Well, it's an unfair way, at all events, and destroys real sport”
“Real sport is filling your basket.”
“No, no; there's no real sport in doing anything that's
unfair,--anything that's un----” He stopped short, and swallowed off a
glass of wine to cover his confusion.
“That's all mighty fine for you, who can not only pay for a license, but
you 're just as sure to be invited here, there, and everywhere there's
game to be killed. But think of me, that never snaps a cap, never throws
a line, but he knows it's worse than robbing a hen-roost, and often,
maybe, just as fond of it as yourself!”
Whether it was that, coming after Darby's mawkish and servile agreement
with everything, this rugged nature seemed more palatable, I cannot
say; but so it was, Con-yers felt pleasure in talking to this rough
unpolished creature, and hearing his opinions in turn. Had there been
in Tom Dill's manner the slightest shade of any pretence, was there any
element of that which, for want of a better word, we call “snobbery,”
Conyers would not have endured him for a moment, but Tom was perfectly
devoid of this vulgarity. He was often coarse in his remarks, his
expressions were rarely measured by any rule of good manners; but it
was easy to see that he never intended offence, nor did he so much as
suspect that he could give that weight to any opinion which he uttered
to make it of moment.
Besides these points in Tom's favor, there was another, which also led
Conyers to converse with him. There is some very subtle self-flattery
in the condescension of one well to do in all the gifts of fortune
associating, in an assumed equality, with some poor fellow to whom fate
has assigned the shady side of the highway. Scarcely a subject can
be touched without suggesting something for self-gratulation; every
comparison, every contrast is in his favor, and Conyers, without being
more of a puppy than the majority of his order, constantly felt how
immeasurably above all his guest's views of his life and the world were
his own,--not alone that he was more moderate in language and less prone
to attribute evil, but with a finer sense of honor and a wider feeling
of liberality.
When Tom at last, with some shame, remembered that he had forgotten all
about the real object of his mission, and had never so much as alluded
to the leeches, Conyers only laughed and said, “Never mind them
to-night. Come back to-morrow and put them on; and mind,--come to
breakfast at ten or eleven o'clock.”
“What am I to say to my father?”
“Say it was a whim of mine, which it is. You are quite ready to do this
matter now. I see it; but I say no. Is n't that enough?”
“I suppose so!” muttered Tom, with a sort of dogged misgiving.
“It strikes me that you have a very respectable fear of your governor.
Am I right?”
“Ain't you afraid of yours?” bluntly asked the other.
“Afraid of mine!” cried Conyers, with a loud laugh; “I should think not.
Why, my father and myself are as thick as two thieves. I never was in a
scrape that I did n't tell him. I 'd sit down this minute and write to
him just as I would to any fellow in the regiment.”
“Well, there 's only one in all the world I 'd tell a secret to, and it
is n't My father!”
“Who is it, then?”
“My sister Polly!” It was impossible to have uttered these words with a
stronger sense of pride. He dwelt slowly upon each of them, and, when he
had finished, looked as though he had said something utterly undeniable.
“Here's her health,--in a bumper too!” cried Conyers.
“Hurray, hurray!” shouted out Tom, as he tossed off his full glass, and
set it on the table with a bang that smashed it. “Oh, I beg pardon! I
didn't mean to break the tumbler.”
“Never mind it, Dill; it's a trifle. I half hoped you had done it on
purpose, so that the glass should never be drained to a less honored
toast. Is she like _you?_”
“Like me,--like me?” asked he, coloring deeply. “Polly like me?”
“I mean is there a family resemblance? Could you be easily known as
brother and sister?”
“Not a bit of it. Polly is the prettiest girl in this county, and she 's
better than she 's handsome. There's nothing she can't do. I taught her
to tie flies, and she can put wings on a green-drake now that would take
in any salmon that ever swam. Martin Keene sent her a pound-note for a
book of 'brown hackles,' and, by the way, she gave it to _me_. And if
you saw her on the back of a horse!--Ambrose Bushe's gray mare, the
wickedest devil that ever was bridled, one buck jump after another
the length of a field, and the mare trying to get her head between her
fore-legs, and Polly handling her so quiet, never out of temper, never
hot, but always saying, 'Ain't you ashamed of yourself, Dido? Don't you
see them all laughing at us?'”
“I am quite curious to see her. Will you present me one of these days?”
Tom mumbled out something perfectly unintelligible.
“I hope that I may be permitted to make her acquaintance,” repeated he,
not feeling very certain that his former speech was quite understood.
“Maybe so,” grumbled he out at last, and sank back in his chair with a
look of sulky ill-humor; for so it was that poor Tom, in his ignorance
of life and its ways, deemed the proposal one of those free-and-easy
suggestions which might be made to persons of very inferior station,
and to whom the fact of acquaintanceship should be accounted as a great
honor.
Conyers was provoked at the little willingness shown to meet his
offer,--an offer he felt to be a very courteous piece of condescension
on his part,--and now both sat in silence. At last Tom Dill, long
struggling with some secret impulse, gave way, and in a tone far more
decided and firm than heretofore, said, “Maybe you think, from seeing
what sort of a fellow I am, that my sister ought to be like me; and
because _I_ have neither manners nor education, that she 's the same?
But listen to me now; she 's just as little like me as you are yourself.
You 're not more of a gentleman than she's a lady!”
“I never imagined anything else.”
“And what made you talk of bringing her up here to present her to you,
as you called it? Was she to be trotted out in a cavasin, like a filly?”
“My dear fellow,” said Conyers, good-humoredly, “you never made a
greater mistake. I begged that you would present _me_ to your sister.
I asked the sort of favor which is very common in the world, and in
the language usually employed to convey such a request. I observed the
recognized etiquette--”
“What do I know about etiquette? If you'd have said, 'Tom Dill, I want
to be introduced to your sister,' I 'd have guessed what you were at,
and I 'd have said, 'Come back in the boat with me to-morrow, and so you
shall.'”
“It's a bargain, then, Dill. I want two or three things in the village,
and I accept your offer gladly.”
Not only was peace now ratified between them, but a closer feeling of
intimacy established; for poor Tom, not much spoiled by any excess of
the world's sympathy, was so delighted by the kindly interest shown him,
that he launched out freely to tell all about himself and his fortunes,
how hardly treated he was at home, and how ill usage had made him
despondent, and despondency made him dissolute. “It's all very well to
rate a fellow about his taste for low pleasures and low companions; but
what if he's not rich enough for better? He takes them just as he
smokes cheap tobacco, because he can afford no other. And do you know,”
continued he, “you are the first real gentleman that ever said a kind
word to me, or asked me to sit down in his company. It's even so strange
to me yet, that maybe when I 'm rowing home to-night I 'll think it's
all a dream,--that it was the wine got into my head.”
“Is not some of this your own fault?” broke in Conyers. “What if you had
held your head higher--”
“Hold my head higher!” interrupted Tom. “With this on it, eh?” And he
took up his ragged and worn cap from the ground, and showed it. “Pride
is a very fine thing when you can live up to it; but if you can't it's
only ridiculous. I don't say,” added he, after a few minutes of silence,
“but if I was far away from this, where nobody knew me, where I did n't
owe little debts on every side, and was n't obliged to be intimate
with every idle vagabond about--I don't say but I'd try to be something
better. If, for instance, I could get into the navy--”
“Why not the army? You 'd like it better.”
“Ay! but it 's far harder to get into. There's many a rough fellow like
myself aboard ship that they would n't take in a regiment. Besides, how
could I get in without interest?”
“My father is a Lieutenant-General. I don't know whether he could be of
service to you.”
“A Lieutenant-General!” repeated Tom, with the reverential awe of one
alluding to an actual potentate.
“Yes. He has a command out in India, where I feel full sure he could
give you something. Suppose you were to go out there? I 'd write a
letter to my father and ask him to befriend you.”
“It would take a fortune to pay the journey,” said Tom, despondingly.
“Not if you went out on service; the Government would send you free of
cost. And even if you were not, I think we might manage it. Speak to
your father about it.”
“No,” said he, slowly. “No; but I 'll talk it over with Polly. Not but
I know well she'll say, 'There you are, castle-building and romancing.
It's all moonshine! Nobody ever took notice of you,--nobody said he 'd
interest himself about you.'”
“That's easily remedied. If you like it, I 'll tell your sister all
about it myself. I 'll tell her it's my plan, and I 'll show her what I
think are good reasons to believe it will be successful.”
“Oh! would you--would you!” cried he, with a choking sensation in the
throat; for his gratitude had made him almost hysterical.
“Yes,” resumed Conyers. “When you come up here tomorrow, we 'll arrange
it all. I 'll turn the matter all over in my mind, too, and I have
little doubt of our being able to carry it through.”
“You 'll not tell my father, though?”
“Not a word, if you forbid it. At the same time, you must see that he'll
have to hear it all later on.”
“I suppose so,” muttered Tom, moodily, and leaned his head thoughtfully
on his hand. But one half-hour back and he would have told Conyers why
he desired this concealment; he would have declared that his father,
caring more for his services than his future good, would have thrown
every obstacle to his promotion, and would even, if need were, have so
represented him to Conyers that he would have appeared utterly unworthy
of his interest and kindness; but now not one word of all this escaped
him. He never hinted another reproach against his father, for already a
purer spring had opened in his nature, the rocky heart had been smitten
by words of gentleness, and he would have revolted against that which
should degrade him in his own esteem.
“Good night,” said Conyers, with a hearty shake of the hand, “and don't
forget your breakfast engagement tomorrow.”
“What 's this?” said Tom, blushing deeply, as he found a crumpled
bank-note in his palm.
“It's your fee, my good fellow, that's all,” said the other, laughingly.
“But I can't take a fee. I have never done so. I have no right to one. I
am not a doctor yet.”
“The very first lesson in your profession is not to anger your patient;
and if you would not provoke me, say no more on this matter.” There was
a half-semblance of haughtiness in these words that perhaps the speaker
never intended; at all events, he was quick enough to remedy the effect,
for he laid his hand good-naturedly on the other's shoulder and said,
“For my sake, Dill,--for my sake.”
“I wish I knew what I ought to do,” said Tom, whose pale cheek actually
trembled with agitation. “I mean,” said he, in a shaken voice, “I wish I
knew what would make _you_ think best of me.”
“Do you attach so much value to my good opinion, then?”
“Don't you think I might? When did I ever meet any one that treated me
this way before?”
The agitation in which he uttered these few words imparted such a
semblance of weakness to him that Conyers pressed him down into a chair,
and filled up his glass with wine.
“Take that off, and you 'll be all right presently,” said he, in a kind
tone.
Tom tried to carry the glass to his lips, but his hand trembled so that
he had to set it down on the table.
“I don't know how to say it,” began he, “and I don't know whether I
ought to say it, but somehow I feel as if I could give my heart's blood
if everybody would behave to me the way you do. I don't mean, mind you,
so generously, but treating me as if--as if--as if--” gulped he out at
last, “as if I was a gentleman.”
“And why not? As there is nothing in your station that should deny that
claim, why should any presume to treat you otherwise?”
“Because I'm not one!” blurted he out; and covering his face with his
hands, he sobbed bitterly.
“Come, come, my poor fellow, don't be down-hearted. I 'm not much older
than yourself, but I 've seen a good deal of life; and, mark _my_ words,
the price a man puts on himself is the very highest penny the world will
ever bid for him; he 'll not always get _that_, but he 'll never--no,
never, get a farthing beyond it!”
Tom stared vacantly at the speaker, not very sure whether he understood
the speech, or that it had any special application to him.
“When you come to know life as well as I do,” continued Conyers, who had
now launched into a very favorite theme, “you'll learn the truth of what
I say. Hold your head high; and if the world desires to see you, it must
at least look up!”
“Ay, but it might laugh too!” said Tom, with a bitter gravity, which
considerably disconcerted the moralist, who pitched away his cigar
impatiently, and set about selecting another.
“I suspect I understand _your_ nature. For,” said he, after a moment or
two, “I have rather a knack in reading people. Just answer me frankly a
few questions.”
“Whatever you like,” said the other, in a half-sulky sort of manner.
“Mind,” said Conyers, eagerly, “as there can be no offence intended,
you'll not feel any by whatever I may say.”
“Go on,” said Tom, in the same dry tone.
“Ain't you obstinate?”
“I am.”
“I knew it. We had not talked half an hour together when I detected
it, and I said to myself, 'That fellow is one so rooted in his own
convictions, it is scarcely possible to shake him.'”
“What next?” asked Tom.
“You can't readily forgive an injury; you find it very hard to pardon
the man who has wronged you.”
“I do not; if he did n't go on persecuting me, I would n't think of him
at all.”
“Ah, that's a mistake. Well, I know you better than you know yourself;
you _do_ keep up the memory of an old grudge,--you can't help it.”
“Maybe so, but I never knew it.”
“You have, however, just as strong a sentiment of gratitude.”
“I never knew that, either,” muttered he; “perhaps because it has had so
little provocation!”
“Bear in mind,” said Conyers, who was rather disconcerted by the want of
concurrence he had met with, “that I am in a great measure referring to
latent qualities,--things which probably require time and circumstances
to develop.”
“Oh, if that's it,” said Dili, “I can no more object than I could if you
talked to me about what is down a dozen fathoms in the earth under our
feet. It may be granite or it may be gold, for what I know; the only
thing that _I_ see is the gravel before me.”
“I 'll tell you a trait of your character you can't gainsay,”
said Conyers, who was growing more irritated by the opposition so
unexpectedly met with, “and it's one you need not dig a dozen fathoms
down to discover,--you are very reckless.”
“Reckless--reckless,--you call a fellow reckless that throws away his
chance, I suppose?”
“Just so.”
“But what if he never had one?”
“Every man has a destiny; every man has that in his fate which he may
help to make or to mar as he inclines to. I suppose you admit that?”
“I don't know,” was the sullen reply.
“Not know? Surely you needn't be told such a fact to recognize it!”
“All I know is this,” said Tom, resolutely, “that I scarcely ever did
anything in my life that it was n't found out to be wrong, so that at
last I 've come to be pretty careless what I do; and if it was n't for
Polly,--if it was n't for Polly--” He stopped, drew his sleeve across
his eyes, and turned away, unable to finish.
“Come, then,” said Conyers, laying his hand affectionately on the
other's shoulder, “add my friendship to _her_ love for you, and see if
the two will not give you encouragement; for I mean to be your friend,
Dill.”
“Do you?” said Tom, with the tears in his eyes.
“There 's my hand on it.”