Bonaparte Blenkins sat on the side of the bed. He had wonderfully
revived since the day before, held his head high, talked in a full
sonorous voice, and ate greedily of all the viands offered him. At his
side was a basin of soup, from which he took a deep draught now and
again as he watched the fingers of the German, who sat on the mud floor
mending the bottom of a chair.
Presently he looked out, where, in the afternoon sunshine, a few
half-grown ostriches might be seen wandering listlessly about, and then
he looked in again at the little whitewashed room, and at Lyndall, who
sat in the doorway looking at a book. Then he raised his chin and tried
to adjust an imaginary shirt-collar. Finding none, he smoothed the
little grey fringe at the back of his head, and began:
“You are a student of history, I perceive, my friend, from the study
of these volumes that lie scattered about this apartment; this fact has
been made evident to me.”
“Well--a little--perhaps--it may be,” said the German meekly.
“Being a student of history then,” said Bonaparte, raising himself
loftily, “you will doubtless have heard of my great, of my celebrated
kinsman, Napoleon Bonaparte?”
“Yes, yes,” said the German, looking up.
“I, sir,” said Bonaparte, “was born at this hour, on an April afternoon,
three-and-fifty years ago. The nurse, sir--she was the same who attended
when the Duke of Sutherland was born--brought me to my mother. ‘There is
only one name for this child,’ she said: ‘he has the nose of his great
kinsman;’ and so Bonaparte Blenkins became my name--Bonaparte Blenkins.
Yes, sir,” said Bonaparte, “there is a stream on my maternal side that
connects me with a stream on his maternal side.”
The German made a sound of astonishment.
“The connection,” said Bonaparte, “is one which could not be easily
comprehended by one unaccustomed to the study of aristocratic pedigrees;
but the connection is close.”
“Is it possible!” said the German, pausing in his work with much
interest and astonishment. “Napoleon an Irishman!”
“Yes,” said Bonaparte, “on the mother’s side, and that is how we are
related. There wasn’t a man to beat him,” said Bonaparte, stretching
himself--“not a man except the Duke of Wellington. And it’s a strange
coincidence,” added Bonaparte, bending forward, “but he was a connection
of mine. His nephew, the Duke of Wellington’s nephew, married a cousin
of mine. She was a woman! See her at one of the court balls--amber
satin--daisies in her hair. Worth going a hundred miles to look at her!
Often seen her there myself, sir!”
The German moved the leather thongs in and out, and thought of the
strange vicissitudes of human life, which might bring the kinsman of
dukes and emperors to his humble room.
Bonaparte appeared lost among old memories.
“Ah, that Duke of Wellington’s nephew!” he broke forth suddenly; “many’s
the joke I’ve had with him. Often came to visit me at Bonaparte Hall.
Grand place I had then--park, conservatory, servants. He had only one
fault, that Duke of Wellington’s nephew,” said Bonaparte, observing that
the German was deeply interested in every word, “He was a coward--what
you might call a coward. You’ve never been in Russia, I suppose?” said
Bonaparte, fixing his crosswise looking eyes on the German’s face.
“No, no,” said the old man humbly. “France, England, Germany, a little
in this country; it is all I have travelled.”
“I, my friend,” said Bonaparte, “I have been in every country in the
world, and speak every civilised language, excepting only Dutch and
German. I wrote a book of my travels--noteworthy incidents. Publisher
got it--cheated me out of it. Great rascals those publishers! Upon
one occasion the Duke of Wellington’s nephew and I were travelling
in Russia. All of a sudden one of the horses dropped down dead as
a doornail. There we were--cold night--snow four feet thick--great
forest--one horse not being able to move the sledge--night coming
on--wolves.
“‘Spree!’ says the Duke of Wellington’s nephew.
“‘Spree, do you call it? says I. ‘Look out.’
“There, sticking out under a bush, was nothing less than the nose of a
bear. The Duke of Wellington’s nephew was up a tree like a shot; I stood
quietly on the ground, as cool as I am at this moment, loaded my gun,
and climbed up the tree. There was only one bough.
“‘Bon,’ said the Duke of Wellington’s nephew, ‘you’d better sit in
front.’
“‘All right,’ said I; ‘but keep your gun ready. There are more coming.’
He’d got his face buried in my back.
“‘How many are there?’ said he.
“‘Four,’ said I.
“‘How many are there now?’ said he.
“‘Eight,’ said I.
“‘How many are there now?’ said he.
“‘Ten,’ said I.
“‘Ten! ten!’ said he; and down goes his gun.
“‘Wallie,’ I said, ‘what have you done? We’re dead men now.’
“‘Bon, my old fellow,’ said he, ‘I couldn’t help it; my hands trembled
so!’
“‘Wall,’ I said, turning round and seizing his hand, ‘Wallie, my dear
lad, good-bye. I’m not afraid to die. My legs are long--they hang
down--the first bear that comes and I don’t hit him, off goes my foot.
When he takes it I shall give you my gun and go. You may yet be saved;
but tell, oh, tell Mary Ann that I thought of her, that I prayed for
her.’
“‘Good-bye, old fellow,’ said he.
“‘God bless you,’ said I.
“By this time the bears were sitting in a circle all around the tree.
Yes,” said Bonaparte impressively, fixing his eyes on the German, “a
regular, exact, circle. The marks of their tails were left in the snow,
and I measured it afterward; a drawing-master couldn’t have done it
better. It was that saved me. If they’d rushed on me at once, poor old
Bon would never have been here to tell this story. But they came on,
sir, systematically, one by one. All the rest sat on their tails and
waited. The first fellow came up, and I shot him; the second fellow--I
shot him; the third--I shot him. At last the tenth came; he was the
biggest of all--the leader, you may say.
“‘Wall,’ I said, ‘give me your hand. My fingers are stiff with the cold;
there is only one bullet left. I shall miss him. While he is eating me
you get down and take your gun; and live, dear friend, live to remember
the man who gave his life for you!’ By that time the bear was at me. I
felt his paw on my trousers.
“‘Oh, Bonnie! Bonnie!’ said the Duke of Wellington’s nephew. But I just
took my gun and put the muzzle to the bear’s ear--over he fell--dead!”
Bonaparte Blenkins waited to observe what effect his story had made.
Then he took out a dirty white handkerchief and stroked his forehead,
and more especially his eyes.
“It always affects me to relate that adventure,” he remarked, returning
the handkerchief to his pocket. “Ingratitude--base, vile ingratitude--is
recalled by it! That man, that man, who but for me would have perished
in the pathless wilds of Russia, that man in the hour of my adversity
forsook me.” The German looked up. “Yes,” said Bonaparte, “I had money,
I had lands; I said to my wife: ‘There is Africa, a struggling country;
they want capital; they want men of talent; they want men of ability to
open up that land. Let us go.’
“I bought eight thousand pounds’ worth of machinery--winnowing, plowing,
reaping machines; I loaded a ship with them. Next steamer I came
out--wife, children, all. Got to the Cape. Where is the ship with
the things? Lost--gone to the bottom! And the box with the money?
Lost--nothing saved!
“My wife wrote to the Duke of Wellington’s nephew; I didn’t wish her to;
she did it without my knowledge.
“What did the man whose life I saved do? Did he send me thirty thousand
pounds? say, ‘Bonaparte, my brother, here is a crumb?’ No; he sent me
nothing.
“My wife said, ‘Write.’ I said, ‘Mary Ann, NO. While these hands have
power to work, NO. While this frame has power to endure, NO. Never shall
it be said that Bonaparte Blenkins asked of any man.’”
The man’s noble independence touched the German.
“Your case is hard; yes, that is hard,” said the German, shaking his
head.
Bonaparte took another draught of the soup, leaned back against the
pillows, and sighed deeply.
“I think,” he said after a while, rousing himself, “I shall now wander
in the benign air, and taste the gentle cool of evening. The stiffness
hovers over me yet; exercise is beneficial.”
So saying, he adjusted his hat carefully on the bald crown of his head,
and moved to the door. After he had gone the German sighed again over
his work:
“Ah, Lord! So it is! Ah!”
He thought of the ingratitude of the world.
“Uncle Otto,” said the child in the doorway, “did you ever hear of ten
bears sitting on their tails in a circle?”
“Well, not of ten exactly: but bears do attack travellers every day. It
is nothing unheard of,” said the German. “A man of such courage, too!
Terrible experience that!”
“And how do we know that the story is true, Uncle Otto?”
The German’s ire was roused.
“That is what I do hate!” he cried. “Know that is true! How do you know
that anything is true? Because you are told so. If we begin to question
everything--proof, proof, proof, what will we have to believe left?
How do you know the angel opened the prison door for Peter, except that
Peter said so? How do you know that God talked to Moses, except that
Moses wrote it? That is what I hate!”
The girl knit her brows. Perhaps her thoughts made a longer journey than
the German dreamed of; for, mark you, the old dream little how their
words and lives are texts and studies to the generation that shall
succeed them. Not what we are taught, but what we see, makes us, and the
child gathers the food on which the adult feeds to the end.
When the German looked up next there was a look of supreme satisfaction
in the little mouth and the beautiful eyes.
“What dost see, chicken?” he asked.
The child said nothing, and an agonizing shriek was borne on the
afternoon breeze.
“Oh, God! my God! I am killed!” cried the voice of Bonaparte, as he,
with wide open mouth and shaking flesh, fell into the room, followed by
a half-grown ostrich, who put its head in at the door, opened its beak
at him, and went away.
“Shut the door! shut the door! As you value my life, shut the door!”
cried Bonaparte, sinking into a chair, his face blue and white, with
a greenishness about the mouth. “Ah, my friend,” he said tremulously,
“eternity has looked me in the face! My life’s thread hung upon a cord!
The valley of the shadow of death!” said Bonaparte, seizing the German’s
arm.
“Dear, dear, dear!” said the German, who had closed the lower half of
the door, and stood much concerned beside the stranger, “you have had a
fright. I never knew so young a bird to chase before; but they will take
dislikes to certain people. I sent a boy away once because a bird would
chase him. Ah, dear, dear!”
“When I looked round,” said Bonaparte, “the red and yawning cavity was
above me, and the reprehensible paw raised to strike me. My nerves,”
said Bonaparte, suddenly growing faint, “always delicate--highly
strung--are broken--broken! You could not give a little wine, a little
brandy my friend?”
The old German hurried away to the bookshelf, and took from behind
the books a small bottle, half of whose contents he poured into a cup.
Bonaparte drained it eagerly.
“How do you feel now?” asked the German, looking at him with much
sympathy.
“A little, slightly, better.”
The German went out to pick up the battered chimneypot which had fallen
before the door.
“I am sorry you got the fright. The birds are bad things till you know
them,” he said sympathetically, as he put the hat down.
“My friend,” said Bonaparte, holding out his hand, “I forgive you; do
not be disturbed. Whatever the consequences, I forgive you. I know, I
believe, it was with no ill-intent that you allowed me to go out. Give
me your hand. I have no ill-feeling; none!”
“You are very kind,” said the German, taking the extended hand, and
feeling suddenly convinced that he was receiving magnanimous forgiveness
for some great injury, “you are very kind.”
“Don’t mention it,” said Bonaparte.
He knocked out the crown of his caved-in old hat, placed it on the table
before him, leaned his elbows on the table and his face in his hands,
and contemplated it.
“Ah, my old friend,” he thus apostrophized the hat, “you have served me
long, you have served me faithfully, but the last day has come. Never
more shall you be borne upon the head of your master. Never more shall
you protect his brow from the burning rays of summer or the cutting
winds of winter. Henceforth bare-headed must your master go. Good-bye,
good-bye, old hat!”
At the end of this affecting appeal the German rose. He went to the
box at the foot of his bed; out of it he took a black hat, which had
evidently been seldom worn and carefully preserved.
“It’s not exactly what you may have been accustomed to,” he said
nervously, putting it down beside the battered chimneypot, “but it might
be of some use--a protection to the head, you know.”
“My friend,” said Bonaparte, “you are not following my advice; you are
allowing yourself to be reproached on my account. Do not make yourself
unhappy. No; I shall go bare-headed.”
“No, no, no!” cried the German energetically. “I have no use for the
hat, none at all. It is shut up in the box.”
“Then I will take it, my friend. It is a comfort to one’s own mind when
you have unintentionally injured any one to make reparation. I know the
feeling. The hat may not be of that refined cut of which the old one
was, but it will serve, yes, it will serve. Thank you,” said Bonaparte,
adjusting it on his head, and then replacing it on the table. “I shall
lie down now and take a little repose,” he added; “I much fear my
appetite for supper will be lost.”
“I hope not, I hope not,” said the German, reseating himself at his
work, and looking much concerned as Bonaparte stretched himself on the
bed and turned the end of the patchwork quilt over his feet.
“You must not think to make your departure, not for many days,” said the
German presently. “Tant Sannie gives her consent, and--”
“My friend,” said Bonaparte, closing his eyes sadly, “you are kind; but
were it not that tomorrow is the Sabbath, weak and trembling as I lie
here, I would proceed on my way. I must seek work; idleness but for a
day is painful. Work, labour--that is the secret of all true happiness!”
He doubled the pillar under his head, and watched how the German drew
the leather thongs in and out.
After a while Lyndall silently put her book on the shelf and went
home, and the German stood up and began to mix some water and meal for
roaster-cakes. As he stirred them with his hands he said:
“I make always a double supply on Saturday night; the hands are then
free as the thoughts for Sunday.”
“The blessed Sabbath!” said Bonaparte.
There was a pause. Bonaparte twisted his eyes without moving his head,
to see if supper were already on the fire.
“You must sorely miss the administration of the Lord’s word in this
desolate spot,” added Bonaparte. “Oh, how love I Thine house, and the
place where Thine honour dwelleth!”
“Well, we do; yes,” said the German; “but we do our best. We meet
together, and I--well, I say a few words, and perhaps they are not
wholly lost, not quite.”
“Strange coincidence,” said Bonaparte; “my plan always was the same.
Was in the Free State once--solitary farm--one neighbour. Every Sunday
I called together friend and neighbour, child and servant, and said,
‘Rejoice with me, that we may serve the Lord,’ and then I addressed
them. Ah, those were blessed times,” said Bonaparte; “would they might
return.”
The German stirred at the cakes, and stirred, and stirred, and stirred.
He could give the stranger his bed, and he could give the stranger his
hat, and he could give the stranger his brandy; but his Sunday service!
After a good while he said:
“I might speak to Tant Sannie; I might arrange; you might take the
service in my place, if it--”
“My friend,” said Bonaparte, “it would give me the profoundest felicity,
the most unbounded satisfaction; but in these worn-out habiliments, in
these deteriorated garments, it would not be possible, it would not be
fitting that I should officiate in service of One whom, for respect, we
shall not name. No, my friend, I will remain here; and, while you are
assembling yourselves together in the presence of the Lord, I, in my
solitude, will think of and pray for you. No; I will remain here!”
It was a touching picture--the solitary man there praying for them. The
German cleared his hands from the meal, and went to the chest from which
he had taken the black hat. After a little careful feeling about, he
produced a black cloth coat, trousers, and waistcoat, which he laid on
the table, smiling knowingly. They were of new shining cloth, worn twice
a year, when he went to the town to nachtmaal. He looked with great
pride at the coat as he unfolded it and held it up.
“It’s not the latest fashion, perhaps, not a West End cut, not exactly;
but it might do; it might serve at a push. Try it on, try it on!” he
said, his old grey eyes twinkling with pride.
Bonaparte stood up and tried on the coat. It fitted admirably; the
waistcoat could be made to button by ripping up the back, and the
trousers were perfect; but below were the ragged boots. The German was
not disconcerted. Going to the beam where a pair of top-boots hung,
he took them off, dusted them carefully, and put them down before
Bonaparte. The old eyes now fairly brimmed over with sparkling
enjoyment.
“I have only worn them once. They might serve; they might be endured.”
Bonaparte drew them on and stood upright, his head almost touching
the beams. The German looked at him with profound admiration. It was
wonderful what a difference feathers made in the bird.