Simon and Richard followed the man through a narrow door in the thick
wall, across a wide passage, and then along a narrow one. A door was
thrown open, and they stepped into a sombre room. The floor of the hall
was of great echoing slabs of stone, but now their feet sank in the deep
silence of a soft carpet.
Here a new awe, dwelling, however, in an air of homeliness, awoke in
Richard. Around him, from floor to ceiling, was ranged a whole army of
books, mostly in fine old bindings; in spite of open window and great
fire and huge chimney, the large lofty room was redolent of them. Their
odour, however, was not altogether pleasing to Richard, whose practised
organ detected in it the signs of a blamable degree of decay. The faint
effluvia of decomposing paper, leather, paste, and glue, were to Richard
as the air of an ill-ventilated ward in the nostrils of a physician. He
sniffed and made an involuntary grimace: he had not seen Mr. Lestrange,
who was close to him, half hidden by a bookcase that stood out from the
wall.
“Good morning, Armour!” said Lestrange. “Your young man does not seem to
relish books!”
“In a grand place like this, sir,” remarked Richard, taking answer
upon himself, “such a library as I never saw, except, of course, at
the British Museum, it makes a man sorry to discover indications of
neglect.”
“What do you mean?” returned Lestrange in displeasure.
Richard's remark was the more offensive that his superior style issued
in a comparatively common tone. Neither was there anything in the
appearance of the place to justify it.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said, fearing he had been rude, “but I am a
bookbinder!”
“Well?” rejoined Lestrange, taking him now for a sneaking tradesman on
the track of a big job.
“I know at once the condition of an old book by the smell of it,”
pursued Richard. “The moment I came in, I knew there must be some
here in a bad way--not in their clothes merely, but in their bodies as
well--the paper of them, I mean. Whether a man has what they call a soul
or not, a book certainly has: the paper and print are the body, and
the binding is the clothes. A gentleman I know--but he's a mystic--goes
farther, and says the paper is the body, the print the soul, and the
meaning the spirit.”
A pretty fellow to be an atheist! my reader may well think.
Mr. Lestrange stared. He must be a local preacher, this blacksmith, this
bookbinder, or whatever he was!
“I am sorry you think the books hypocrites,” he said. “They look all
right!” he added, casting his eyes over the shelves before him.
“Would you mind me taking down one or two?” asked Richard. “My hands are
rather black, but the colour is ingrain, as Spenser might say.”
“Do so, by all means,” answered Lestrange, curious to see how far the
fellow could support with proof the accuracy of his scent.
Richard moved three paces, and took down a volume--one of a set,
the original edition in quarto of “The Decline and Fall,” bound in
russia-leather.
“I thought so!” he said; “going!--going!--Look at the joints of
this Gibbon, sir. That's always the way with russia--now-a-days, at
least!--Smell that, grandfather! Isn't it sweet? But there's no stay in
it! Smell that joint! The leather's stone-dead!--It's the rarest thing
to see a volume bound in russia, of which the joints are not broken, or
at least cracking. These joints, you see, are gone to powder! All russia
does--sooner or later, whatever be the cause.--Just put that joint to
your nose, sir! That's part of what you smell so strong in the room.”
He held out the book to him, but Lestrange drew back: it was not fit his
nose should stoop to the request of a tradesman!
Richard replaced the book, and took down one after another of the same
set.
“Every one, you see, sir,” he said, “going the same way! Dust to dust!”
“If they're _all_ going that way,” remarked the young man, “it would
cost every stick on the estate to rebind them!”
“I should be sorry to rebind any of them. An old binding is like an old
picture! Just look at this French binding! It's very dingy, and a good
deal broken, but you never see anything like that nowadays--as mellow
as modest, and as rich as roses! Here's one says the same thing as your
grand hall out there, only in a piping voice.”
Lestrange was not exactly stuck-up; he had feared the fellow was
bumptious, and felt there was no knowing what he might say next, but
by this time had ceased to imagine his dignity in danger. The young
blacksmith's admiration of the books and of the hall pleased him, and he
became more cordial.
“Do you say _all_ russia-leather behaves in the same fashion?” he asked.
“Yes, now. I fancy it did not some years ago. There may be some change
in the preparation of the leather. I don't know. It is a great pity!
Russia is lovely to the eye--and to the nostrils.--May I take a look at
some of the _old_ books, sir?”
“What do you call an _old_ book?”
“One not later, say, than the time of James the First.--Have you a first
folio, sir?”
Lestrange was thinking of his coming baronetcy.
“First folio?” he answered absently. “I dare say you will find a good
many first folios on the shelves!”
“I mean the folio Shakespeare of 1623. There are, of course, many folios
much scarcer! I saw one the other day that the booksellers themselves
gave eight hundred guineas for!”
“What was it?” asked Lestrange carelessly.
“It was a wonderful copy--unique as to condition--of Gower's _Confessio
Amantis;_--not a _very_ interesting book, though I do not doubt
Shakespeare was fond of it. You see Shakespeare could hear the stones
preaching!”
“By Jove, a man may hear the sticks do that any Sunday!”
“True enough, sir, ha-ha!”
“Have you read Gower, then?”
“A good deal of him.”
“Was it that same precious copy you read him in?”
“It was; but I hadn't time for more than about the half. I must finish
on another edition, I fear.”
“How did you get hold of a book of such value?”
“The booksellers who bought it, asked me to take it into my hospital. It
wanted just a little, a very little patching. The copy in the museum is
not to compare to it.”
“You say it was not interesting?”
“Not _very_ interesting, I said, sir.”
“Why did you read so much of it, then?”
“When a book is hard to come at, you are the more ready to read it when
you have the chance.”
“I suppose that's why one borrows his neighbour's books and don't read
his own! I seldom take one down from those shelves.”
Richard felt as if a wall was broken down between them.
All the time they talked, old Simon stood beside, pleased to note how
well his grandson could hold up the ball with the young squire, but
saying nothing. If the matter had been hoof of horse, cow, or ass,
he would not have been silent: he knew hoofs better than Richard knew
books.
Richard took down a small folio, the back of which looked much too soft
and loose. Opening it, he found what he expected--a wreck. It was hardly
fit to be called any more a book. The clothes had forsaken the body, or
rather the body had decayed away from the clothes.
“Now, look here!” he said. “Here is Cowley's Poems--in such a state that
I doubt if anything would ever make a book of it again. I thought by the
back all was wrong inside! See how the leaves have come away singly: the
paper itself is rotten! I doubt if there is any way to make paper so far
gone as this hold together. I know a good deal can be done, and I must
learn what is known. I shan't be master of my trade till I know all that
can be done now to stop such a book from crumbling into dust! Then I may
find out something more!”
“Well, for that one, I don't think it matters: Cowley ain't much!” said
Lestrange, throwing the volume on a table. “I remember once taking down
the book, and trying to read some of it: I could not; it's the dullest
rubbish ever written.”
“It's not so bad as that, sir!” answered Richard, and taking up the book
he turned the leaves with light, practiced hand. “He was counted the
greatest poet of his day, and no age loves dullness! Listen a moment,
sir; I will read only one stanza.”
He had found the “Hymn to the Light,” and read:--
“First born of _Chaos_, who so fair didst come From the old Negro's
darksome womb! Which when it saw the lovely Child, The melancholy Mass
put on kind looks and smil'd.”
“I don't see much in that!” said Lestrange, as Richard closed the book,
and glanced up expectant.
Richard was silent for an instant.
“At any rate,” he returned, “it is necessary to the understanding of our
history, that we should know the kind of thing admired and called good
at any given time of it: so our lecturer at King's used to tell us.”
“At King's!” cried Lestrange.
“King's college, London, I mean,” said Richard. “They have evening
classes there, to which a man can go after his day's work. My father
always took care I should have time for anything I wanted to do. I go
still when I am at home--not always, but when the lecturer takes up any
special subject I want to know more about.”
“You'll be an author yourself some day, I suppose!”
“There's little hope or fear of that, sir! But I can't bear not to know
what's in my very hands. I can't be content with the outsides of the
books I bind. It seems a shame to come so near light and never see it
shine. If I were a tailor, I should learn anatomy. I know one tailor
who is as familiar with the human form as any sculptor in London--more,
perhaps!”
Lestrange began to feel uncomfortable. If he let this prodigy go on
talking and asking questions, he would find out how little he knew about
anything! But Richard was no prodigy. He was only a youth capable of
interest in everything, with the stimulus of not finding the fountains
of knowledge at his very door, and the aid of having to work all day at
some pleasant task, nearly associated with higher things that he loved
better. He did know a good deal for his age, but not so very much for
his opportunity, his advantages being great. Most men who learn would
learn more, I suspect, if they had work to do, and difficulty in the
way of learning. Those counted high among Richard's advantages. He
was, besides, considerably attracted by the mechanics of literature--a
department little cultivated by those who have most need of what grows
in it.
Further talk followed. Lestrange grew interested in the phenomenon of
a blacksmith that bound books and read them. He began to dream of
patronage and responsive devotion. What a thing it would be for him,
in after years, with the cares of property and parliament combining to
curtail his leisure, to have such a man at his beck, able to gather the
information he desired, and to reduce, tabulate, and embody it so as
to render his chief the best-informed man in the House! while at other
times he would manage for him his troublesome tenants, and upon occasion
shoe his wife's favourite horse! He could also depend upon him to
provide, from the rich stores of his memory, suitable quotations when he
wished to make a speech! Lestrange had never thought whether the wish to
_appear_ might not indicate the duty to _be_; had never seen that, until
he _was_, to desire to _appear_ was to cherish the soul of a sneak. He
had no notion of anything but the look; no notion that, having made a
good speech, he would deserve an atom the less praise for it that he
could not have made it without his secretary. Did any one think the less
of clearing a five-barred gate, he would have answered, that it could
not be done without a horse? Where was the difference? A man you paid to
be your secretary, still more a man whose education to be your secretary
you had paid for--was he not yours in a way at least analogous to that
in which a horse was yours? He could break away from you more easily,
no doubt, but a man knew better than a horse on which side his bread was
buttered!
“I think, squire, I'll go and have a pipe with the coachman!” said the
blacksmith at length.
“As you please, Armour,” answered Lestrange. “I will take care of
your--nephew, is he?”
“My grandson, sir--from London.”
“All right! There's good stuff in the breed, Armour!--I will bring him
to you.”
Richard went on taking down book after book, and showing his host how
much they required attention.
“And you could set all right for--?--for how much?” asked Lestrange.
“That no one could say. It would, however, cost little more than time
and skill. The material would not come to much. Only, where the paper
itself is in decay, I do not know about that. I have learned nothing in
that department yet.”
“For generations none of us have cared about books--that must be why
they have gone so to the bad!--the books, I mean,” he added with a
laugh. “There was a bishop, and I think there was a poet, somewhere
in the family; but my father--hm!--I doubt if he would care to lay out
money on the library!”
“Tell him,” suggested Richard, “that it is a very valuable library--at
least so it appears to me from the little I have seen of it; but I am
sure of this, that it is rapidly sinking in value. After another twenty
years of neglect it would not fetch half the price it might easily be
brought up to now.”
“I don't know that that would weigh much with him. So long as he sees
the shelves full, and the book-backs all right, he won't want anything
better. He cares only how things look.”
“But the whole look of the library is growing worse--gradually, it is
true, and in a measure it can't be helped--but faster than you would
think, and faster than it ought. The backs, which, from a library point
of view, are the faces of the books, may, up to a certain moment, look
well, and after that go much more rapidly. I fear damp is getting at
these from somewhere!”
“Would you undertake to set all right, if my father made you a
reasonable offer?”
“I would--provided I found no injury beyond the scope of my experience.”
Richard spoke in book-fashion: he was speaking about books, and to a
social superior! he was not really pompous.
“Well, if my father should come to see the thing as I do, I will let you
know. Then will be the time for a definite understanding!”
“The best way would be that I should come and work for a set time: by
the progress I made, and what I cost, you could judge.”
Lestrange rang the bell, and ordered the attendant to take the young man
to his grandfather.
The two wandered together over the grounds, and Richard saw much to
admire and wonder at, but nothing to approach the hall or the library.
On their way home, Simon, to his grandson's surprise, declared himself
in favour of his working at the Mortgrange library. But the idea
tickled his fancy so much, that Richard wondered at the oddity of his
grandfather's behaviour.