Amyntas scratched his head, and presently an inspiration came to him.
'I will go to the parson,' he said.
The parson had been hunting, and he was sitting in his study in a great
oak chair, drinking a bottle of port; his huge body and his red face
expressed the very completest satisfaction with the world in general;
one felt that he would go to bed that night with the cheerful happiness
of duty performed, and snore stentoriously for twelve hours. He was
troubled by no qualms of conscience; the Thirty-nine Articles caused him
never a doubt, and it had never occurred to him to concern himself with
the condition of the working classes. He lived in a golden age, when the
pauper was allowed to drink himself to death as well as the nobleman,
and no clergyman's wife read tracts by his bedside....
Amyntas told his news.
'Well, my boy'--he never spoke but he shouted--'so you're going away?
Well, God bless you!'
Amyntas looked at him expectantly, and the parson, wondering what he
expected, came to the conclusion that it was a glass of port, for at
that moment he was able to imagine nothing that man could desire more.
He smiled benignly upon Amyntas, and poured him out a glass.
'Drink that, my boy. Keep it in your memory. It's the finest thing in
the world. It's port that's made England what she is!'
Amyntas drank the port, but his face did not express due satisfaction.
'Damn the boy!' said the parson. 'Port's wasted on him.' ... Then,
thinking again what Amyntas might want, he rose slowly from his chair,
stretching his legs. 'I'm not so young as I used to be; I get stiff
after a day's hunting.' He walked round his room, looking at his
bookshelves; at last he picked out a book and blew the dust off the
edges. 'Here's a Bible for you, Amyntas. The two finest things in the
world are port and the Bible.'
Amyntas thanked him, but without great enthusiasm. Another idea struck
the parson, and he shouted out another question.
'Have you any money?'
Amyntas told him of the guinea.
'Damn your father! What's the good of a guinea?' He went to a drawer and
pulled out a handful of gold--the tithes had been paid a couple of days
before. 'Here are ten; a man can go to hell on ten guineas.'
'Thank you very much, sir,' said Amyntas, pocketing the money, 'but I
don't think I want to go quite so far just yet.'
'Then where the devil do you want to go?' shouted the parson.
'That's just what I came to ask you about.'
'Why didn't you say so at once? I thought you wanted a glass of port.
I'd sooner give ten men advice than one man port.' He went to the door
and called out, 'Jane, bring me another bottle.' He drank the bottle in
silence, while Amyntas stood before him, resting now upon one leg now
upon another, turning his cap round and round in his hands. At last the
parson spoke.
'You may look upon a bottle of port in two ways,' he said; 'you may take
it as a symbol of a happy life or as a method of thought.... There are
four glasses in a bottle. The first glass is full of expectation; you
enter life with mingled feelings; you cannot tell whether it will be
good or no. The second glass has the full savour of the grape; it is
youth with vine-leaves in its hair and the passion of young blood. The
third glass is void of emotion; it is grave and calm, like middle age;
drink it slowly, you are in full possession of yourself, and it will not
come again. The fourth glass has the sadness of death and the bitter
sweetness of retrospect.'
He paused a moment for Amyntas to weigh his words.
'But a bottle of port is a better method of thought than any taught by
the school-men. The first glass is that of contemplation--I think of
your case; the second is apprehension--an idea occurs to me; the third
is elaboration--I examine the idea and weigh the pros and cons; the
fourth is realisation--and here I give you the completed scheme. Look at
this letter; it is from my old friend Van Tiefel, a Dutch merchant who
lives at Cadiz, asking for an English clerk. One of his ships is
sailing from Plymouth next Sunday, and it will put in at Cadiz on the
way to Turkey.'
Amyntas thought the project could have been formed without a bottle of
port, but he was too discreet to say so, and heartily thanked the
parson. The good man lived in a time when teetotalism had not ruined the
clergy's nerves, and sanctity was not considered incompatible with a
good digestion and common humanity....
V
Amyntas spent the evening bidding tender farewells to a round dozen of
village beauties, whose susceptible hearts had not been proof against
the brown eyes and the dimples of the youth. There was indeed woe when
he spread the news of his departure; and all those maiden eyes ran
streams of salt tears as he bade them one by one good-bye; and though he
squeezed their hands and kissed their lips, vowing them one and all the
most unalterable fidelity, they were perfectly inconsolable. It is an
interesting fact to notice that the instincts of the true hero are
invariably polygamic....
It was lucky for Amyntas that the parson had given him money, for his
father, though he gave him a copy of the _Ethics of Aristotle_ and his
blessing, forgot the guinea; and Amyntas was too fearful of another
reproach to remind him of it.
Amyntas was up with the lark, and having eaten as largely as he could in
his uncertainty of the future, made ready to start. The schoolmaster had
retired to his study to conceal his agitation; he was sitting like
Agamemnon with a dishcloth over his head, because he felt his face
unable to express his emotion. But the boy's mother stood at the cottage
door, wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron, surrounded by her
weeping children. She threw her arms about her son's neck, giving him a
loud kiss on either cheek, and Amyntas went the round of his brothers
and sisters, kissing them and bidding them not forget him. To console
them, he promised to bring back green parrots and golden bracelets, and
embroidered satins from Japan. As he passed down the village street he
shook hands with the good folk standing at their doors to bid him
good-bye, and slowly made his way into the open country.