When the young Marquis had made his escape from sightseeing, and all its
attendant inflictions, he was mainly bent on what he would himself have
called being “very jolly,”--that is to say, going his own way
unmolested, strolling the road he fancied, and following out his own
thoughts. Not that these same thoughts absolutely needed for their
exercise or development any extraordinary advantages of solitude and
retirement. He was no deep-minded sage, revolving worlds to come,--no
poet, in search of the inspiring influence of nature,--no subtle
politician, balancing the good and evil of some nice legislation. He was
simply one of those many thousand England yearly turns out from her
public schools of fine, dashing, free-hearted, careless boys, whose most
marked feature in character is a wholesome horror of all that is mean or
shabby. Less than a year before, he had been a midshipman in her
Majesty's gun-boat “Mosquito;” the death of an elder brother had made
him a Marquis, with the future prospect of several thousands a year.
He had scarcely seen or known his brother, so he grieved very little for
his loss, but he sorrowed sincerely over the change of fortune that
called him from his sea life and companions to an “on-shore” existence,
and instead of the gun-room and its gay guests, gave him the proprieties
of station and the requirements of high rank. One of his guardians
thought he ought to go into the Guards; another advised a university;
both agreed upon a tutor, and Mr. Layton was found, a young man of small
fortune, whose health, injured by over-reading for honors, required
change of scene and rest. They had been companions for a very short
time, but had, as the young Lord would have said, “hit it off” admirably
together; that is to say, partly from a just appreciation of his pupil,
and partly out of a natural indolence of disposition, Layton interfered
very little with him, gave him no troublesome tasks, imposed no actual
studies, but contented himself with a careful watch over the boy's
disposition, a gentle, scarce perceptible correction of his faults, and
an honest zeal to develop any generous trait in his nature, little
mindful of the disappointments his trustfulness must incur. Layton's
theory was that we all become wise too early in life, and that the
world's lessons should not be too soon implanted in a fresh unsuspecting
nature. His system was not destined to be sorely tested in the present
case. Harry Montserrat, Marquis of Agincourt, was a fortunate subject to
illustrate it by. There never was a less suspectful nature; he was
frank, generous, and brave; his faults were those of a hot, fiery
temper, and a disposition to resent, too early and too far, what with a
little patience he might have tolerated or even forgiven.
The fault, however, which Layton was more particularly guardful against,
was a certain over-consciousness of his station and its power, which
gradually began to show itself.
In his first experience of altered fortune he did nothing but regret the
past. It was no compensation to him for his careless sea-life, with all
its pleasant associations, to become of a sudden invested with station,
and treated with what he deemed over-deference. His reefer's jacket was
pleasanter “wear” than his padded frock-coat; the nimble boy who waited
on him in the gun-room he thought a far smarter attendant than his
obsequious valet; and, with all his midshipman's love of money-spending
and squandering, the charm of extravagance was gone when there were no
messmates to partake of it; nor did his well-groomed nag and his well-
dressed tiger suggest one-half the enjoyment he had often felt in a pony
ride over the cliffs of Malta, with some others of his mess, where falls
were rife and tumbles frequent. These, I say, were first thoughts, but
gradually others took their places. The enervation of a life of ease
began soon to show itself, and he felt the power of a certain station.
In the allowance his guardian made him, he had a far greater sum at his
disposal than he ever possessed before; and in the title of his rank he
soon discovered a magic that made the world beneath him very deferential
and very obliging.
“That boy has been very ill brought up, Mr. Layton; it will be your
chief care to instil into him proper notions of the place he is to
occupy one of these days,” said an old Earl, one of his guardians, and
who was most eager that every trace of his sea life should be
eradicated.
“Don't let him get spoiled, Layton, because he's a Lord,” said the other
guardian, who was an old Admiral. “There's good stuff in the lad, and it
would be a thousand pities it should be corrupted.”
Layton did his best to obey each; but the task had its difficulties. As
to the boy himself, the past and the present, the good and the evil, the
frank young middy and the rich lordling, warred and contended in his
nature; nor was it very certain at any moment which would ultimately
gain the mastery. Such, without dwelling more minutely, was he who now
strolled along through shrubbery and parterre, half listless as to the
way, but very happy withal, and very light-hearted.
There was something in the scene that recalled England to his mind.
There were more trees and turf than usually are found in Italian
landscape, and there was, half hidden between hazel and alder, a clear,
bright river, that brawled and fretted over rocks, or deepened into dark
pools, alternately. How the circling eddies of a fast-flowing stream do
appeal to young hearts! what music do they hear in the gushing waters!
what a story is there in that silvery current as it courses along
through waving meadows, or beneath tall mountains, and along some dark
and narrow gorge, emblem of life itself in its light and shade, its
peaceful intervals and its hours of struggle and conflict.
Forcing his way through the brushwood that guarded the banks, the boy
gained a little ledge of rock, against which the current swept with
violence, and then careered onward over a shallow, gravelly bed till
lost in another bend of the stream. Just as Agincourt reached the rock,
he spied a fishing-rod deeply and securely fastened in one of its
fissures, but whose taper point was now bending like a whip, and
springing violently under the struggling effort of a strong fish. He was
nothing of an angler. Of honest “Izaak” and his gentle craft he
absolutely knew nought, and of all the mysteries of hackles and green
drakes he was utterly ignorant; but his sailor instinct could tell him
when a spar was about to break, and this he now saw to be the case. The
strain was great, and every jerk now threatened to snap either line or
rod. He looked hurriedly around him for the fisherman, whose interests
were in such grave peril; but seeing no one near, he endeavored to
withdraw the rod. While he thus struggled, for it was fastened with
care, the efforts of the fish to escape became more and more violent,
and at last, just as the boy had succeeded in his task, a strong spring
from the fish snapped the rod near the tip, and at the same instant
snatched it from the youth's hand into the stream. Without a second's
hesitation, Agincourt dashed into the river, which rose nearly to his
shoulders, and, after a vigorous pursuit, reached the rod, but only as
the fish had broken the strong gut in two, and made his escape up the
rapid current.
The boy was toilfully clambering up the bank, with the broken rod in his
hand, when a somewhat angry summons in Italian met his ears. It was time
enough, he thought, to look for the speaker when he had gained dry land;
so he patiently fought his way upwards, and at last, out of breath and
exhausted, threw himself full length in the deep grass of the bank.
“I believe I am indebted to you, sir, for my smashed tackle and the loss
of a heavy fish besides?” said Charles Heathcote, as he came up to where
the youth was lying, his voice and manner indicating the anger that
moved him.
“I thought to have saved the rod and caught the fish too,” said the
other, half indolently; “but I only got a wet jacket for my pains.”
“I rather suspect, young gentleman, you are more conversant with a
measuring-yard than a salmon-rod,” said Heathcote, insolently, as he
surveyed the damaged fragments of his tackle.
“What do you mean by that, sir?” cried the boy, springing with a bound
to his feet, and advancing boldly towards his adversary.
“Simply that it 's not exactly the sort of sport you follow in Bond
Street,” retorted Heathcote, whose head was full of “Mosely and Trip,”
and felt certain that a scion of that great house was before him.
“You must be a rare snob not to know a gentleman when you see him,” said
Agincourt, with an insolent defiance in his look.
“Perhaps I'd be a better judge if I saw him after a good washing,” said
Heathcote, who, with one hasty glance at the river, now turned a fierce
eye on the youth.
Agincourt's gun-room experiences had not taught him to decline an
offered battle, and he threw off his cap to show that he was ready and
willing to accept the challenge, when suddenly Layton sprang between
them, crying out, “What's the meaning of all this?”
“The meaning is, that your young friend there has taken the liberty,
first, to smash my fishing-gear, and then to be very insolent to me, and
that I had very serious intentions of sending him to look for the one
and pay forfeit for the other.”
“Yes, I broke his rod, and I 'll pay for it, or, if he's a gentleman,
I'll beg his pardon, or fight him,” said the boy, in a tone of ill-
repressed anger.
“When there is an evident mistake somewhere,” said Layton, gently, “it
only needs a moment of forbearance to set it right.”
“Here's how it all happened,” broke in the boy, eagerly. And in a few
words he related his chance arrival at the spot, how he had seen the rod
in what he deemed imminent danger, and how with the best intentions he
had interfered to save it.
“I beg you to accept all my excuses for what I have said to you,” said
Heathcote, with a frank and manly courtesy. “I am quite ashamed of my
ill-temper, and hope you'll forgive it.”
“To be sure I will. But what about the rod,--you can't easily get such
another in these parts?”
The boy looked eagerly at Layton as he spoke. Layton as quickly gave an
admonitory glance of caution, and the youth's instinctive good breeding
understood it.
“I think you came over with a party of friends to see the villa,” said
Heathcote, to relieve the awkward pause between them.
“Not friends, exactly; people of our hotel.”
Heathcote smiled faintly, and rejoined,--
“Some of our pleasantest acquaintances come of chance intimacies,--don't
you think so?”
“Oh, for the matter of that, they 're jolly enough. There's a wonderful
Londoner, and a rare Yankee, and there's an Irishman would make the
fortune of the Haymarket.”
“You must own, Harry, they are all most kind and good-natured to you,”
said Layton, in a tone of mild half-rebuke.
“Well, ain't I just as--what shall I call it?--polite and the like to
them? Ay, Layton, frown away as much as you like, they're a rum lot.”
“It is young gentlemen of this age who nowadays are most severe on the
manners and habits of those they chance upon in a journey, not at all
aware that, as the world is all new to them, their criticism may have
for its object things of every-day frequency.”
The youth looked somewhat vexed at this reproof, but said nothing.
“I have the same unlucky habit myself,” said Heathcote, good-humoredly.
“I pronounce upon people with wonderfully little knowledge of them, and
no great experience of the world neither; and--case in point--your
American acquaintance is exactly one of those I feel the very strongest
antipathy to. We have met at least a dozen times during the winter and
autumn, and the very thought of finding _him_ in a place would decide
_me_ to leave it.”
It was not Layton's business to correct what he deemed faulty in this
sentiment; but in the sharp glance he threw towards his pupil, he seemed
to convey his disapproval of it.
“'My Coach,' Mr. Layton, is dying to tell us both we are wrong, sir,”
said the boy; “he likes the 'kernal.'” And this he said with a nasal
twang whose imitation was not to be mistaken.
Though Heathcote laughed at the boy's mimicry, his attention was more
taken by the expression “my Coach,” which not only revealed the
relations of tutor and pupil between them, but showed, by its
familiarity, that the youth stood in no great awe of his preceptor.
Perhaps Layton had no fancy for this liberty before a stranger; perhaps
he felt ashamed of the position itself; perhaps he caught something in
Heathcote's quick glance towards him,--whatever it was, he was irritated
and provoked, and angrily bit his lip, without uttering a word.
“Oh, here come the sight-seers! they are doing the grounds, and the
grottos, and the marble fountains,” cried the boy, as a large group came
out from a flower-garden and took their way towards an orangery. As they
issued forth, however, Mrs. Morris stopped to caress a very large St.
Bernard dog, who lay chained at the foot of an oak-tree. Charles
Heathcote had not time to warn her of her danger, when the animal sprang
fiercely at her. Had she not fallen suddenly backward, she must have
been fearfully mangled; as it was, she received a severe wound in the
wrist, and, overcome by pain and terror together, sank fainting on the
sward.
For some time the confusion was extreme. Some thought that the dog was
at liberty, and fled away in terror across the park; others averred that
he was--must be--mad, and his bite fatal; a few tried to be useful; but
Quackinboss hurried to the river, and, filling his hat with water,
sprinkled the cold face of the sufferer and washed the wound, carefully
binding it up with his handkerchief in a quick, business-like way, that
showed he was not new to such casualties.
Layton meanwhile took charge of the little girl, whose cries and screams
were heartrending.
“What a regular day of misfortunes, this!” said Agincourt, as he
followed the mournful procession while they carried the still fainting
figure back to the house. “I fancy you 'll not let another batch of
sight-seers into your grounds in a hurry.”
“The ill-luck has all befallen our guests,” said Heathcote. “Our share
of the mishap is to be associated with so much calamity.”
All that care and kindness could provide waited on Mrs. Morris, as she
was carried into the villa and laid on a bed. May Leslie took all upon
herself, and while the doctor was sent for, used such remedies as she
had near. It was at once decided that she should not be removed, and
after some delay the company departed without her; the day that had
dawned so pleasantly thus closing in gloom and sadness, and the party so
bent on amusement returned homeward depressed and dispirited.
“They 're mean vicious, these Alp dogs, and never to be trusted,” said
Quackinboss.
“Heroines will be heroines,” said Mrs. Morgan, gruffly.
“Or rather won't be heroines when the occasion comes for it. She fainted
off like a school-girl,” growled out Morgan.
“I should think she did!” muttered Mosely, “when she felt the beast's
teeth in her.”
“A regular day of misfortunes!” repeated Agincourt.
“And we lost the elegant fine luncheon, too, into the bargain,” said
O'Shea. “Every one seemed to think it wouldn't be genteel to eat after
the disaster.”
“It is the fate of pleasure parties,” said Layton, moodily. And so they
jogged on in silence.
And thus ended a day of pleasure, as many have ended before it.
Assuredly, they who plan picnics are not animated by the spirit of an
actuary. There is a marvellous lack of calculation in their composition,
since, of all species of entertainment, there exists not one so much at
the mercy of accident, so thoroughly dependent for success on everything
going right. Like the Walcheren expedition, the “wind must not only blow
from the right point, but with a certain graduated amount of force.”
What elements of sunshine and shade, what combinations of good spirits
and good temper and good taste! what guidance and what moderation, what
genius of direction and what “respect for minorities”! We will not enter
upon the material sources of success, though, indeed, it should be owned
they are generally better looked to, and more cared for, than the moral
ingredients thus massed and commingled.
It was late when the party reached the Bagni, and, wishing each other a
half-cold good-night, separated.
And now, one last peep at the villa, where we have left the sufferer. It
was not until evening that the Heathcotes had so far recovered from the
shock of the morning's disaster and its consequences as to be able to
meet and talk over the events, and the actors in them.
“Well,” said Sir William, as they all sat round the tea-table, “what do
you say to my Yankee now? Of all that company, was there one that showed
the same readiness in a difficulty, a quick-witted aptitude to do the
right thing, and at the same time so unobtrusively and quietly that when
everything was over it was hard to say who had done it?”
“I call him charming. I'm in ecstasies with him,” said May, whose
exaggerations of praise or censure were usually unbounded.
“I 'm quite ready to own he 'came out' strong in the confusion,” said
Charles, half unwillingly; “but it was just the sort of incident that
such a man was sure to figure well in.”
“Show me the man who is active and ready-minded in his benevolence, and
I 'll show you one who has not to go far into his heart to search for
generous motives. I maintain it, Quackinboss is a fine fellow!” There
was almost a touch of anger in Sir William's voice as he said these
words, as though he would regard any disparagement of the American as an
offence to himself.
“I think Charley is a little jealous,” said May, with a sly malice; “he
evidently wanted to carry the wounded lady himself, when that great
giant interposed, and, seizing the prize, walked away as though he were
only carrying a baby.”
“I fancied it was the tutor was disappointed,” said Charles; “and the
way he devoted his cares to the little girl, when deprived of the mamma,
convinced me he was the party chiefly interested.”
“Which was the tutor?” asked May, hastily. “You don't mean the man with
all the velvet on his coat?”
“No, no; that was Mr. O'Shea, the Irish M.P., who, by the way, paid
_you_ the most persevering attention.”
“A hateful creature, insufferably pretentious and impertinent! The tutor
was, then, the pale young man in black?”
“A nice, modest fellow,” broke in Sir William; “and a fine boy that
young Marquis of Agincourt. I 'm glad you asked him up here, Charles. He
is to come on Tuesday, is he not?”
“Yes, I said Tuesday, because I can't get my tackle to rights before
that; and I promised to make him a fly-fisher. I owe him the
reparation.”
“You included the tutor, of course, in your invitation?” asked his
father.
“No. How stupid! I forgot him altogether.”
“Oh! that was too bad,” said May.
“Indeed,” cried Charles, turning towards her with a look of such
malicious significance that she blushed deeply, and averted her head.
“Let us invite them all up here for Tuesday, May,” said Sir William. “It
would be very unfair if they were to carry away only a disagreeable
memory of this visit. Let us try and efface the first unhappy
impression.”
“All right,” said Charles, “and I'll dash off a few lines to Mr. Layton,
I think his name is, to say that we expect he will favor us with his
company for a few days here. Am I not generosity itself, May?” said he,
in a low whisper, as he passed behind her chair.
A blush still deeper than the first, and a look of offended pride, were
her only answer.
“I must go in search of these good people's cards, for I forget some of
their names,” said Charles; “though I believe I remember the important
ones.”
This last sally was again directed towards May, but she, apparently, did
not hear it.
“Who knows but your patient upstairs may be well enough to meet her
friends, May?” said Sir William.
“Perhaps so. I can't tell,” answered she, vaguely; for she had but heard
him imperfectly, and scarcely knew what she was replying.