Although time has not advanced, nor any change of season occurred to
tinge the landscape with colder hues, we are obliged to ask our reader's
company to a scene as unlike the sunny land we have been sojourning in
as possible. It is a little bay on the extreme north coast of Ireland,
closely landlocked by rugged cliffs, whose basalt formation indicates a
sort of half-brotherhood with the famed Causeway. Seen from the tall
precipices above, on a summer's day, when a vertical sunlight would have
fallen on the strip of yellow crescent-like beach along which white-
crested waves slowly came and went, the spot was singularly beautiful,
and the one long, low, white cottage which faced the sea would have
seemed a most enviable abode, so peaceful, so calm it looked. Closely
girt in on three sides by rocky cliffs, whose wild, fantastic outlines
presented every imaginable form, now rising in graceful pinnacles and
minarets, now standing out in all the stern majesty of some massive
fortress or donjon keep, some blue and purple heaths might be seen
clothing the little shelves of rock, and, wherever a deeper cleft
occurred, some tall, broad-leaved ferns; but, except these, no other
vegetation was to be met with. Indeed, the country for miles around
displayed little else than the arid yellowish grass that springs from
light sandy soil, the scant pasturage of mountain sheep. Directly in
front of the bay, and with a distinctness occasionally startling, might
be seen rising up from the sea a mass of stately cliffs, which seemed
like a reflection of the Causeway. This was Staffa, something more than
thirty-odd miles off, but which, in the thin atmosphere of a calm day,
might easily be traced out from the little cove of Port-na-Whapple.
Port-na-Whapple had once been a noted spot amongst fishermen; the
largest “takes” of salmon--and of the finest fish on the coast--had been
made there. For three or four weeks in the early autumn the little bay
was the scene of a most vigorous activity, the beach covered with rude
huts of branches and boat canvas, the strand crowded with people, all
busily engaged salting, drying, or packing the fish; boats launching, or
standing in, deep-laden with their speckled freight; great fires blazing
in every sheltered nook, where the cares of household were carried on in
common, for the fishermen who frequented the place lived like one large
family. They came from the same village in the neighborhood, and, from
time out of mind, had resorted to this bay as to a spot especially and
distinctively their own. They had so identified themselves with the
place that they were only known as Port-na-Whapple men; a vigorous,
stalwart, sturdy race of fellows were they, too, that none molested or
interfered with willingly.
About forty years before the time we now speak of, a new proprietor had
succeeded to the vast estate, which had once belonged to the Mark-Kers,
and he quickly discovered that the most valuable part of his inheritance
consisted in the fishing royalties of the coast. To assert a right to
what nobody ever believed was the actual property of any one in
particular, was not a very easy process. Had the Port-na-Whapple men
been told that the air they breathed, or the salt sea they traversed,
were heritable, they could as readily have believed it, as that any one
should assert his claim to the strip of sandy beach where they and their
fathers before them had fished for ages.
Sir Archibald Beresford, however, was not a man to relinquish a claim he
had once preferred; he had right and parchment on his side, and he cared
very little for prescription, or what he called the prejudices of a
barbarous peasantry. He went vigorously to work, served the trespassers
with due notice to quit, and proceeded against the delinquents at
sessions. For years and years the conflict lasted, with various and
changeful successes. Now, the landlord would seem triumphant, he had
gained his decree, taken ont his execution against the nets, the boats,
and the tackle, but when the hour of enforcing the law arrived, his
bailiffs had been beaten ignominiously from the field, and the fishermen
left in full possession of the territory. Driven to desperation by the
stubborn resistance, Sir Archy determined on a bolder stand. He erected
a cottage on the beach, and established himself there with a strong
garrison of retainers well armed, and prepared to defend their rights.
Port-na-Whapple was at length won, and although some bloody affrays did
occasionally occur between the rival parties, the fishermen were
compelled to abandon the station and seek a livelihood elsewhere.
With a confidence inspired by some years of security, Sir Archy
diminished his garrison, till at length it was his habit to come down to
the bay accompanied by only a single servant. The old feud appeared to
have died out; not, indeed, that the landlord met those signs of respect
from his tenantry which imply good understanding between them; no
welcome met him when he came, no regrets followed him when he departed,
and even few of the country people accorded the courtesy of touching
their hat as they met him passingly on the road. He was a “hard man,”
however, and cared little for such slights. At length--it was a season
when he had exceeded his usual stay at the coast--there came a period of
great distress amongst the fishermen. Day after day the boats went out
and returned empty. It was in vain that they passed days and nights at
sea, venturing far out upon that wild northern ocean,--the most
treacherous in existence,--in vain they explored the bays, more perilous
still than the open sea. Their sole subsistence was derived from the
sea, and what was to be done? Gaunt famine was stamped on many a hardy
face, and strong men dragged their limbs lazily and languidly, as if in
sickness. As Sir Archy had never succeeded in obtaining a tenant for the
royalty of Port-na-Whapple, he amused himself gaffing the salmon, which
he from time to time sent as presents to his friends; and even now, in
this season of dearth, many a well-filled hamper found its way up the
steep cliffs to be despatched to some remote corner of the kingdom. It
was on one of these days that an enormous fish--far too big for any
basket--was carefully encased in a matting, and sent off by the
Coleraine coach, labelled, “The largest ever gaffed at Port-na-Whapple.”
Many an eye, half glazed with hunger, saw the fish, and gazed on the
superscription as it was sent into the village, and looks of ominous
meaning were cast over the deep cliffs towards the little cottage below.
The morning after this, while Sir Archibald's servant was at the post
for his letters, a boat rowed into the little cove, and some men, having
thrown out the anchor, waded ashore.
“What brings you here, fellows?” cried Sir Archy, haughtily, as he met
them on the beach.
“We are come to gaff a bigger fish than yours o' yesterday,” said the
foremost, striking him on the forehead with the handle of the gaff; and
he passed the spear through his heart while he yet reeled under the
blow.
Notwithstanding the most active exertions of the Government of the day
and the local magistrature, the authors of the foul deed were never
discovered, and although there could be no doubt they were well known to
a large population, none betrayed them. More strange still, from that
day and hour not a fish was ever taken at Port-na-Whapple!
The property had fallen into Chancery, and, the interests of the
claimants not being very closely guarded, the fishermen were again at
liberty to fish wherever they pleased. The privilege was of no value;
the fish had deserted the spot, and even when they swarmed at Carrig-a-
rede, and all along the shore, not one ever was taken there! That the
place was deemed “uncannie,” and that none frequented it, need not cause
any wonder, and so the little cottage fell into ruin, the boat-house was
undermined by the sea and carried away, and even of the little boat-pier
only a few bare piles now remained to mark the place, when at length
there arrived, from Dublin, a doctor to take charge of the Ballintray
Dispensary, and, not being able to find a habitable spot in the village,
he was fain to put the old cottage in repair, little influenced by the
superstition that attached to the unholy place.
He was an elderly man, whose family consisted of his wife and a single
servant, and who, from the day of his first arrival, showed a decided
repugnance to forming acquaintance with any, or holding other
intercourse with his neighbors than what the cares of his profession
required. In person he was tall, and even stately; his features those of
a man once handsome, but now disfigured by two red blotches over the
eyes, and a tremulousness of the nether lip, indications of long years
of dissipation, which his watery eye and shaking hand abundantly
confirmed. Either, too, from a consciousness of his infirmity, or a
shame not less deeply rooted, he never met the eyes of those he
addressed, but turned his gaze either askance or to the ground, giving
him then an expression very different from the look he wore when alone
and unobserved. At such times the face was handsome but haughty, a
character of almost defiant pride in the eye, while the angles of the
mouth were slightly drawn down, as one sees in persons of proud
temperament. A few words will suffice for so much of his history as the
reader need know. Herbert Layton had the proud distinction of being a
Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, at the age of twenty-one, and, three
years later, won, against many distinguished competitors, the chair of
medicine in the university. His whole academic career had been a
succession of triumphs, and even able men made this excuse for not
obtaining honors, that they were “in Layton's division.” His was one of
those rare natures to which acquirements the most diverse and opposite
are easy. The most critical knowledge of the classics was combined in
him with a high-soaring acquaintance with science, and while he carried
away the gold medal for verse composition, the very same week announced
him as prizeman for microscopic researches. And while he thus swept the
college of honors, he was ever foremost in all athletic games and manly
exercises. Indeed, the story goes that the gown in which he won his
fellowship had been hastily thrown over the jacket of the cricketer. If
the blemish served to afflict those who felt the truest friendship for
him, it rather contributed to exaggerate the prestige of his name that
he was haughty and even overbearing in manner; not meanly condescending
to be vain of his successes and the high eminence he had won,--far from
it, no man treated such triumphs with such supercilious levity, boldly
declaring that they were within the reach of all, and that it was a
simple question of application to any,--his proud demeanor had its
source in a certain sense of self-reliance, and a haughty conviction
that the occasion had not come--might never come--to show the world the
great “stuff that was in him;” and thus, many a rumor ran, “Layton is
sorry for having taken to medicine; it can lead to nothing: at the Bar
he must have gained every eminence, entered Parliament, risen Heaven
knows to what or where. Layton cannot conceal his dissatisfaction with a
career of no high rewards.” And thus they sought for the explanation of
that demeanor which hurt the pride of many and the sympathy of all.
Partly from the aggressive nature of the passion of self-esteem, never
satisfied if with each day it has not made further inroad, partly,
perhaps, from the estrangement of friends, wearied out by endless
pretensions, Layton at last lived utterly companionless and alone. His
habits of hard work made this the less remarkable; but stories were soon
abroad that he had abandoned himself to drink, and that the hours
believed to be passed in study were in reality spent in debauch and
intoxication. His appearance but unhappily gave some corroboration to
the rumor. He had grown careless in his dress, slouching in his walk;
his pale, thoughtful face was often flushed with a glow exercise never
gives; and his clear bright eye no longer met another's with boldness.
He neglected, besides, all his collegiate duties, his pupils rarely
could obtain sight of him, his class-room was always deserted, a brief
notice “that the Regius Professor was indisposed, and would not
lecture,” remaining affixed to the door for the entire session.
While this once great reputation was thus crumbling away, there arose
another, and, the time considered, a far more dangerous imputation. It
was the terrible period of 1807, and men said that Layton was deep in
all the designs of the Emmet party. So completely was the insurrection
limited to men of the very humbler walks in life, so destitute was the
cause of all support from persons of station or influence, that it is
scarcely possible to picture the shock--almost passing belief--of the
world when this report began to gain currency and credit. Were the
public to-morrow to learn that some great and trusted political leader
was found out to be secretly in the pay of France or Russia, it would
not excite more incredulous horror than at that day was caused by
imputing rebellious projects to Herbert Layton.
The honor of the University was too deeply involved to suffer such a
charge to be rashly circulated. The board summoned the Regius Professor
to attend before them. He returned his reply to the summons on the back
of a letter constituting him a member of the “United Irishmen,” the
great rebel association of the day. As much out of regard to their own
fame, as in pity for a rashness that might have cost him his life, they
destroyed the document and deprived him of his fellowship.
From the day that he wandered forth a ruined, houseless, destitute man,
little is known of him. At long intervals of time, men would say, “Could
that have been poor Herbert, that 'Layton,' taken up by the police for
drunkenness, or accused of some petty crime? Was it he who was charged
with sending threatening letters to this one, or making insolent demands
on that?” Another would say, “I could swear I saw Layton as a witness in
one of those pot-house trials where the course of law proceedings is
made the matter of vulgar jest.” Another met him hawking quack medicines
in a remote rural district.
It is not necessary we should follow him through these changes, each
lower than the last in degradation. We arrive by a bound at a period
when he kept a small apothecary's shop in a little village of North
Wales, and where, with seeming reformation of character, he lived
discreetly, and devoted himself assiduously to the education of an only
son.
By dint of immense effort, and sacrifices the most painful, he succeeded
in entering his boy at Cambridge; but in his last year, his means
failing, he had obtained a tutorship for him,--no less a charge than
that of the young Marquis of Agincourt,--an appointment to which his
college tutor had recommended him. Almost immediately after this, a
vacancy occurring in the little village of Ballintray for a dispensary
doctor, Layton applied for the appointment, and obtained it. Few,
indeed, of the electors had ever heard of his name, but all were
astonished at the ample qualifications tendered by one willing to accept
such humble duties. The rector of the parish, Dr. Millar, was, though
his junior, perhaps, the only one well conversant with Layton's story,
for he had been his contemporary at the University.
On the two or three occasions on which they met, Dr. Millar never
evinced by the slightest allusion any knowledge of the other's
antecedents. He even, by adroit reference to English life and habits, in
contradistinction to Irish, seemed to infer that his experiences were
more at home there; and whatever might have been Layton's own secret
promptings, there was nothing in the clergyman's manner to provoke the
slightest constraint or awkwardness.
The reader is now sufficiently informed to accompany us to the little
cottage on the beach of Port-na-Whapple. It is a warm autumnal
afternoon, the air calm and still, but the great sea comes heaving in,
wave swelling after wave, as though moved by a storm. Strange contrast
to that loud thundering ocean the little peaceful cottage, whose blue
smoke rises in a thin, straight column into the air. The door is open,
and a few ducks, with their young brood, are waddling up and down the
blue stone step, as though educating their young in feats of difficulty
and daring. On a coarse wooden perch within the hall sits a very old
gray parrot, so old that his feathers have assumed a sort of half-woolly
look, and his bleared eyes only open at intervals, as though he had seen
quite enough of this world already, and could afford to take it easily.
In the attitude of the head, partially thrown forward and slightly on
one side, there is a mock air of thought and reflection, marvellously
aided by a habit the creature has of muttering to himself such little
broken ends of speech as he possesses. Layton had bought him a great
many years back, having fancied he could detect a resemblance in him to
a once famed vice-provost of Trinity, after whom he called him “Dr.
Barret,” a name the bird felt proud of, as well he might, and seemed
even now, in his half dotage, to warm up on hearing it. Through the open
door of a little room adjoining might be seen a very pale, sickly woman,
who coughed almost incessantly as she bent over an embroidery-frame.
Though not much more than middle-aged, her hair was perfectly white, and
deep discolorations--the track of tears for many a day--marked her worn
cheeks.
On the opposite side of the hall, in a small room whose furniture was an
humble truckle-bed, and a few shelves with physic-bottles, the doctor
was engaged at his toilet, if by so pretentious a term we may record the
few preparations he was making to render his every-day appearance more
presentable. As he stood thus in trousers and shirt, his broad chest and
powerful neck exposed, he seemed to testify even yet to the athletic
vigor of one who was known as the best hurler and racket-player of his
day. He had been swimming a long stretch far out to sea, and air and
exercise together had effaced many of those signs of dissipation which
his face usually wore, while in his voice there was a frank boldness
that only came back to him at some rare intervals.
“I can fancy, Grace,” cried he, loud enough to be heard across the hall,
“that Millar is quite proud of his condescension. The great rector of
the parish, man of fortune besides, stooping to invite the dispensary
doctor! Twelve hundred per annum associating with eighty! To be sure he
says, 'You will only meet two friends and neighbors of mine,' as though
to intimate, 'I am doing this on the sly; I don't mean to make you a
guest on field-days.'”
She muttered something, speedily interrupted by a cough; and he, not
caring to catch her words, went on:--
“It is a politeness that cuts both ways, and makes _me_ as uncomfortable
as him. This waistcoat has a beggarly account of empty button-holes; and
as for my coat, nothing but a dim candle-light would screen its
deficiencies. I was a fool to accept!” cried he, impatiently.
“Don't go, Tom! don't go!” screamed the parrot, addressing him by a
familiar sobriquet.
“And why not, doctor?” said Layton, laughing at the apropos.
“Don't go! don't go!” repeated the bird.
“Give me your reasons, old boy, and not impossible is it I 'll agree
with you. What do you say, Grace?” added he, advancing to the door of
his room the better to catch her words.
“It is to them the honor is _done_, not to you,” said she, faintly, and
as though the speech cost her heavily.
“Very hard to persuade the rector of that,--very hard to convince the
man of silver side-dishes and cut decanters that he is not the patron of
him who dines off Delf and drinks out of pewter. Is this cravat too
ragged, Grace? I think I 'd better wear my black one.”
“Yes, the black one,” said she, coughing painfully.
“After all, it is no grand occasion,--a little party of four.”
“What a swell! what a swell!” shrieked the parrot.
“Ain't I? By Jove,” laughed Layton, “the doctor is marvellous in his
remarks to-day.”
“There, I have done my best with such scanty 'properties,'” said he, as
he turned away from the glass. “The greatest peril to a shabby man is
the self-imposed obligation to show he is better than he looks. It is an
almost invariable blunder.”
She muttered something inaudibly, and, as usual, he went on with his own
thoughts.
“One either assumes a more dictatorial tone, or takes more than his
share of the talk, or is more apt to contradict the great man of the
company,--at least _I_ do.”
“Don't go, Tom! don't! don't!” called out Dr. Barret.
“Not go?--after all these splendid preparations!” said Layton, with a
laugh. “After yourself exclaiming, 'What a swell!'”
“It 'll never pay,--never pay,--never pay!” croaked out Poll.
“That I'm sure of, doctor. I never knew one of these politic things that
did; but yet we go on through life practising them in the face of all
their failure, dancing attendance at levées, loitering in antechambers,
all to be remembered by some great man who is just as likely to hate the
sight of us. However, this shall be my last transgression.”
The faint female voice muttered some indistinct words about what he
“owed to himself,” and the “rightful station that belonged to him;” but
he speedily cut the reflection short as he said: “So long as a man is
poor as I am, he can only hold his head high by total estrangement from
the world. Let him dare to mix with it, and his threadbare coat and
patched shoes will soon convince him that they will extend no equality
to him who comes among them in such beggarly fashion. With what
authority, I ask, can he speak, whose very poverty refutes his
sentiments, and the simple question stands forth unanswerable: 'If this
man knew so much, why is he as we see him?'”
“This is, then, to say that misfortune is never unmerited. Surely you do
not mean that, Herbert?” said she, with an eagerness almost painful.
“It is exactly what I would say,--that for all the purposes of worldly
judgments upon men, there is no easier rule than to assume that they who
fail deserve failure. Richelieu never asked those who sought high
command, 'Are you skilful in the field? are you clever in strategy?'
but' 'Are you lucky?'”
A deep sigh was her only answer.
“I wonder who Millar's fourth man is to be? Colonel Karstairs, I know,
is one; a man of importance to me, Grace,” said he, laughing; “a two-
guinea subscriber to the dispensary! How I wish I were in a more fitting
spirit of submissiveness to my betters; and, by ill fortune, this is one
of my rebellious days!”
“Don't go, Tom! Don't go, I say!” yelled out Poll.
“Prophet of evil, and evil prophet, hold your tongue! I will go,” said
he, sternly, and as if answering a responsible adviser; and setting his
hat on, with a certain air of dogged defiance, he left the house.
His wife arose, and with feeble steps tottered to the door of the
cottage to look after him. A few steps brought him to the foot of the
cliff, up the steep face of which a zigzag path led upwards for fully
four hundred feet, a narrow track trodden by the bare feet of hardy
mountaineers into some semblance of a pathway, but such as few denizens
of towns would willingly have taken. Layton, however, stepped along like
one whose foot was not new to the heather; nay, the very nature of the
ascent, the bracing air of the sea, and something in the peril itself of
the way, seemed to revive in the man his ancient vigor; and few, seeing
him from the beach below, as he boldly breasted the steep bluff, or
sprang lightly over some fissured chasm, would have deemed him one long
since past the prime of life,--one who had spent more than youth, and
its ambitions, in excess.
At first, the spirit to press onward appeared to possess him entirely;
but ere he reached the half ascent, he turned to look down on the yellow
strip of strand and the little cottage, up to whose very door-sill now
the foam seemed curling. Never before had its isolation seemed so
complete. Not a sail was to be seen seaward, not even a gull broke the
stillness with his cry; a low, mournful plash, with now and then a
rumbling half thunder, as the sea resounded within some rocky cavern,
were the only sounds, and Layton sat down on a mossy ledge, to drink in
the solitude in all its fulness. Amidst thoughts of mingled pain and
pleasure, memories of long-past struggles, college triumphs and college
friendships, came dreary recollections of dark reverses, when the world
seemed to fall back from him, and leave him to isolation. Few had ever
started with more ambitious yearnings,--few with more personal
assurances of success. Whatever he tried he was sure to be told,
“_There_ lies your road, Layton; _that_ is the path will lead you to
high rewards.” He had, besides,--strange inexplicable gift,--that
prestige of superiority about him that made men cede the place to him,
as if by prescription. “And what had come of it all?--what had come of
it all?” he cried out aloud, suddenly awaking out of the past to face
the present. “Why have I failed?” asked he wildly of himself. “Is it
that others have passed me in the race? Have my successes been
discovered to have been gained by trick or fraud? Have my acquirements
been pronounced mere pretensions? These, surely, cannot be alleged of
one whose fame can be attested by almost every scientific and literary
journal of the empire. No, no! the explanation is easier,--the poet was
wrong,--Fortune _is_ a Deity, and some men are born to be unlucky.”
With a sudden start he arose, and rallied from these musings. He quickly
bethought himself of his engagement, and continued his way upward. When
he reached the tableland at top, it wanted but a few minutes of five
o'clock, and five was the hour for which he was invited, and there was
yet two miles to walk to the Rectory. Any one who has lived for a
considerable space estranged from society and its requirements, will own
to the sense of slavery impressed by a return to the habits of the
world. He will feel that every ordinance is a tyranny, and the necessity
of being dressed for this, or punctual for that, a downright bondage.
Thus chafing and irritable, Layton walked along. Never was man less
disposed to accept hospitality as a polite attention, and more than once
did he halt, irresolute whether he should not retrace his steps towards
home. “No man,” thought he, “could get off more cheaply. They would
ascribe it all to my ignorance. What should a poor devil with eighty
pounds a year know of politeness? and when I had said, _I_ had forgotten
the invitation, they would forget _me!_”
Thus self-accusing and self-disparaging, he reached the little avenue
gate, which by a trim gravel walk led up to the parsonage. The neat
lodge, with its rustic porch, all overgrown with a rich japonica,--the
well-kept road, along whose sides two little paved channels conducted
the water,--the flower-plats at intervals in the smooth emerald turf,
were all assurances of care and propriety; and as Layton marked them, he
muttered, “This is one of the lucky ones.”
As Layton moved on with laggard step, he halted frequently to mark some
new device or other of ornamental gardening. Now it was a tasteful group
of rock-work, over which gracefully creepers hung in festoons; now it
was a little knot of flowering shrubs, so artfully intermingled as to
seem as though growing from a single stem; now a tiny fishpond could be
descried through the foliage; even the rustic seats, placed at points of
commanding view, seemed to say how much the whole scene had been planned
for enjoyment, and that every tint of foliage, every undulation of the
sward, every distant glimpse caught through a narrow vista, had all been
artfully contrived to yield its share of pleasure.
“I wonder,” muttered he, bitterly, to himself,--“I wonder when this man
preaches on a Sunday against wealth and its temptations, reminding
others that out of this world men take nothing, but go out upon their
new pilgrimage naked and poor, does he ever turn a thought to all these
things, so beautiful now, and with that vitality that will make them
beautiful years and years after he himself has become dust? I have
little doubt,” added he, hurriedly, “that he says all this, and believes
it too. Here am I, after just as many determinations to eat no man's
salt, nor sit down to any board better than my own,--here I am to-day
creeping like a poor parasite to a great man's table,--ay, he is a great
man to _me!_
“How strange is the casuistry, too, with which humble people like myself
persuade themselves that they go into the world against their will; that
they do so purely from motives of policy, forgetting all the while how
ignoble is the motive they lay claim to.
“The old Roman moralist told us that poverty had no heavier infliction
in its train than that it made men ridiculous, but I tell him he is
wrong. It makes men untrue to themselves, false to their own hearts,
enemies to their own convictions, doing twenty things every day of their
lives that they affect to deem prudent, and know to be contemptible. I
wish my worthy host had left me unnoticed!”
He was at last at the door, and rang the bell with the impatient
boldness of one chafing and angry with himself. There was a short delay,
for the servants were all engaged in the dining-room, and Layton rang
again.
“Dr. Millar at home?” asked he, sternly, of the well-powdered footman
who stood before him.
“Yes, sir; he's at dinner.”
“At dinner! I was invited to dinner!”
“I know, sir; and the doctor waited for half an hour beyond the time;
but he has only gone in this moment.”
It is just possible, in Layton's then frame of mind, that he had turned
away and left the house, never to re-enter it, when a slight
circumstance determined him to the opposite. This was the footman's
respectful manner as he took the hat from his hand, and threw wide the
door for him to pass onward. Ay, it is ever so! Things too trivial and
insignificant for notice in this life are every hour influencing our
actions and swaying our motives. Men have stormed a breach for a smile,
and gone out in black despair with life just for a cold word or a cold
look. So much more quickly does the heart influence than the head, even
with the very cleverest amongst us.
As Layton entered the dining-room, his host rose to receive him, and,
with a polished courtesy, apologized for having gone to table before his
arrival. “I gave you half an hour, doctor, and I would have given you
longer, but that I am aware a physician is not always master of his
time. Colonel Karstairs you are acquainted with. Let me present you to
Mr. Ogden. Dr. Layton, Mr. Ogden.”
There is no manner that so impresses the world with the idea of self-
sufficiency and pretension as that of the bashful man contending against
his own diffidence; and this same timidity, that one would imagine so
easily rubbed off by contact with the world, actually increases with
age, and, however glossed over by an assumed ease and a seeming
indifference, lives to torment its possessor to his last day. Of this
Layton was an unhappy victim, and while imbued with a consummate self-
esteem, he had a painful consciousness of the criticism that his manner
and breeding might call forth. The result of this conflict was to render
him stern, defiant, and even overbearing,--traits which imparted their
character even to his features in first intercourse with strangers.
“I don't know how Halford managed it,” said Mr. Ogden, as he reseated
himself at table, “but I 've heard him say that his professional
engagements never lost him a dinner.”
Simple as were these words, they contained a rebuke, and the air of the
man that uttered them did not diminish their significance.
Mr. Ogden was a thin, pale, pock-marked man, with an upstanding head of
gray hair, a very high and retreating forehead, and a long upper lip,--
one of those men in whom the face, disproportionately large for the
head, always gives the impression of a self-sufficient nature. He had a
harsh, sharp voice, with an articulation of a most painful accuracy,
even his commonplaces being enunciated with a sort of distinct
impressiveness, as though to imply that his copper was of more value
than another man's gold. Nor was this altogether a delusion; he had had
a considerable experience of mankind and the world, and had contrived to
pass his bad money on them as excellent coin of the realm. He was--and
it is very distinctive in its mark--one of those men who always live in
a class above their own, and, whatever be the recognition and the
acceptance they have there, are ever regarded by their rightful equals
as something peculiarly privileged and superior.
“My Lord” would have called him a useful man; his friends all described
him as “influential.” But he was something greater than either,--he was
a successful man. We are constantly told that the efficiency of our army
is mainly owing to the admirable skill and ability of its petty
officers. That to their unobtrusive diligence, care, and intelligence we
are indebted for all those qualities by which a force is rendered
manageable, and victories are won. Do we not see something very similar
in our Bureaucracy? Is not our Government itself almost entirely in the
hands of “petty officers”? The great minister who rises in his place in
Parliament, the exponent of some grand policy, the author of some
extensive measure, is, after all, little more than the mouthpiece of
some “Mr. Ogden” in Downing Street; some not very brilliant or very
statesmanlike personage, but a man of business habits, every-day
intelligence, and long official traditions,--one of those three or four
men in all England who can say to a minister, “It can't be done,” and
yet give no reason why.
The men of this Ogden stamp are, in reality, great influences in a
country like ours, where frequent changes of government require that the
traditions of office should be transmitted through something higher and
more responsible than mere clerks. They are the stokers who keep the
fires alight and the steam up till a new captain comes aboard, and,
though neither commanders nor pilots, they _do_ manage to influence the
course of the ship, by the mere fact that they can diminish the force of
her speed or increase its power without any one being very well aware of
how or wherefore.
Such men as these are great people in that dingy old house, whose frail
props without are more than emblems of what goes on within. Of their
very offices men speak as of the Holy of Holies; places where none enter
fearlessly save secretaries of state, and at whose door inferior mortals
wipe their feet with heart-sinking fear and lowness of spirit,
rehearsing not unfrequently the abject words of submissiveness with
which they are to approach such greatness.
It is curious, therefore, to see one of these men in private life. One
wishes to know how M. Houdin will look without his conjuring-rod, or
what Coriolanus will do in plain clothes; for, after all, he must come
into the world unattended with his belongings, and can no more carry
Downing Street about with him than could Albert Smith carry “China” to a
dinner-party.
And now the soup has been brought back, and the fish, somewhat cold and
mangled, to be sure, has been served to Dr. Layton; the servant has
helped him to an admirable glass of sherry, and the dinner proceeds
pleasantly enough,--not, however, without its casualties. But of these
the next chapter will tell us.