diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 7610.txt | 2723 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 7610.zip | bin | 0 -> 58380 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
5 files changed, 2739 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/7610.txt b/7610.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..66f6070 --- /dev/null +++ b/7610.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2723 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook Eugene Aram, Book 2, by Bulwer-Lytton +#38 in our series by Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + +Title: Eugene Aram, Book 2. + +Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +Release Date: March 2005 [EBook #7610] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on January 29, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EUGENE ARAM, BOOK 2, BY LYTTON *** + + + +This eBook was produced by David Widger + + + + + + EUGENE ARAM + + By Edward Bulwer-Lytton + + + + BOOK II. + + CHAPTER I. + + THE MARRIAGE SETTLED.--LESTER'S HOPES AND SCHEMES.--GAIETY OF + TEMPER A GOOD SPECULATION.--THE TRUTH AND FERVOUR OF + ARAM'S LOVE. + + Love is better than a pair of spectacles, to make + every thing seem greater which is seen through it. + --Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia. + +Aram's affection to Madeline having now been formally announced to +Lester, and Madeline's consent having been somewhat less formally +obtained, it only remained to fix the time for their wedding. Though +Lester forbore to question Aram as to his circumstances, the Student +frankly confessed, that if not affording what the generality of persons +would consider even a competence, they enabled one of his moderate wants +and retired life to dispense, especially in the remote and cheap district +in which they lived, with all fortune in a wife, who, like Madeline, was +equally with himself enamoured of obscurity. The good Lester, however, +proposed to bestow upon his daughter such a portion as might allow for +the wants of an increased family, or the probable contingencies of Fate. +For though Fortune may often slacken her wheel, there is no spot in which +she suffers it to be wholly still. + +It was now the middle of September, and by the end of the ensuing month +it was agreed that the spousals of the lovers should be held. It is +certain that Lester felt one pang for his nephew, as he subscribed to +this proposal; but he consoled himself with recurring to a hope he had +long cherished, viz. that Walter would return home not only cured of his +vain attachment to Madeline, but of the disposition to admit the +attractions of her sister. A marriage between these two cousins had for +years been his favourite project. The lively and ready temper of Ellinor, +her household turn, her merry laugh, a winning playfulness that +characterised even her defects, were all more after Lester's secret heart +than the graver and higher nature of his elder daughter. This might +mainly be, that they were traits of disposition that more reminded him of +his lost wife, and were therefore more accordant with his ideal standard +of perfection; but I incline also to believe that the more persons +advance in years, the more, even if of staid and sober temper themselves, +they love gaiety and elasticity in youth. I have often pleased myself by +observing in some happy family circle embracing all ages, that it is the +liveliest and wildest child that charms the grandsire the most. And after +all, it is perhaps with characters as with books, the grave and +thoughtful may be more admired than the light and cheerful, but they are +less liked; it is not only that the former, being of a more abstruse and +recondite nature, find fewer persons capable of judging of their merits, +but also that the great object of the majority of human beings is to be +amused, and that they naturally incline to love those the best who amuse +them most. And to so great a practical extent is this preference pushed, +that I think were a nice observer to make a census of all those who have +received legacies, or dropped unexpectedly into fortunes; he would find +that where one grave disposition had so benefited, there would be at +least twenty gay. Perhaps, however, it may be said that I am taking the +cause for the effect! + +But to return from our speculative disquisitions; Lester then, who, +though he so slowly discovered his nephew's passion for Madeline, had +long since guessed the secret of Ellinor's affection for him, looked +forward with a hope rather sanguine than anxious to the ultimate +realization of his cherished domestic scheme. And he pleased himself with +thinking that when all soreness would, by this double wedding, be +banished from Walter's mind, it would be impossible to conceive a family +group more united or more happy. + +And Ellinor herself, ever since the parting words of her cousin, had +seemed, so far from being inconsolable for his absence, more bright of +cheek and elastic of step than she had been for months before. What a +world of all feelings, which forbid despondence, lies hoarded in the +hearts of the young! As one fountain is filled by the channels that +exhaust another; we cherish wisdom at the expense of hope. It thus +happened from one cause or another, that Walter's absence created a less +cheerless blank in the family circle than might have been expected, and +the approaching bridals of Madeline and her lover, naturally diverted in +a great measure the thoughts of each, and engrossed their conversation. + +Whatever might be Madeline's infatuation as to the merits of Aram, one +merit--the greatest of all in the eyes of a woman who loves, he at least +possessed. Never was mistress more burningly and deeply loved than she, +who, for the first time, awoke the long slumbering passions in the heart +of Eugene Aram. Every day the ardour of his affections seemed to +increase. With what anxiety he watched her footsteps!--with what idolatry +he hung upon her words!--with what unspeakable and yearning emotion he +gazed upon the changeful eloquence of her cheek. Now that Walter was +gone, he almost took up his abode at the manor-house. He came thither in +the early morning, and rarely returned home before the family retired for +the night; and even then, when all was hushed, and they believed him in +his solitary home, he lingered for hours around the house, to look up to +Madeline's window, charmed to the spot which held the intoxication of her +presence. Madeline discovered this habit, and chid it; but so tenderly, +that it was not cured. And still at times, by the autumnal moon, she +marked from her window his dark figure gliding among the shadows of the +trees, or pausing by the lowly tombs in the still churchyard--the +resting-place of hearts that once, perhaps, beat as wildly as his own. + +It was impossible that a love of this order, and from one so richly +gifted as Aram; a love, which in substance was truth, and yet in language +poetry, could fail wholly to subdue and inthral a girl so young, so +romantic, so enthusiastic, as Madeline Lester. How intense and delicious +must have been her sense of happiness! In the pure heart of a girl loving +for the first time--love is far more ecstatic than in man, inasmuch as it +is unfevered by desire--love then and there makes the only state of human +existence which is at once capable of calmness and transport! + + + + + CHAPTER II. + + A FAVOURABLE SPECIMEN OF A NOBLEMAN AND A COURTIER.--A MAN OF + SOME FAULTS AND MANY ACCOMPLISHMENTS. + + Titinius Capito is to rehearse. He is a man of an excellent + disposition, and to be numbered among the chief ornaments of + his age. He cultivates literature--he loves men of learning, + etc. + --Lord Orrery: Pliny. + +About this time the Earl of ______, the great nobleman of the district, +and whose residence was within four miles of Grassdale, came down to pay +his wonted yearly visit to his country domains. He was a man well known +in the history of the times; though, for various reasons, I conceal his +name. He was a courtier;--deep--wily--accomplished; but capable of +generous sentiments and enlarged views. Though, from regard to his +interests, he seized and lived as it were upon the fleeting spirit of the +day--the penetration of his intellect went far beyond its reach. He +claims the merit of having been the one of all his co-temporaries (Lord +Chesterfield alone excepted), who most clearly saw, and most distinctly +prophesied, the dark and fearful storm that at the close of the century +burst over the vices, in order to sweep away the miseries, of France--a +terrible avenger--a salutary purifier. + +From the small circle of sounding trifles, in which the dwellers of a +court are condemned to live, and which he brightened by his abilities and +graced by his accomplishments, the sagacious and far-sighted mind of +Lord--comprehended the vast field without, usually invisible to those of +his habits and profession. Men who the best know the little nucleus which +is called the world, are often the most ignorant of mankind; but it was +the peculiar attribute of this nobleman, that he could not only analyse +the external customs of his species, but also penetrate their deeper and +more hidden interests. + +The works, and correspondence he has left behind him, though far from +voluminous, testify a consummate knowledge of the varieties of human +nature The refinement of his taste appears less remarkable than the +vigour of his understanding. It might be that he knew the vices of men +better than their virtues; yet he was no shallow disbeliever in the +latter: he read the heart too accurately not to know that it is guided as +often by its affections as its interests. In his early life he had +incurred, not without truth, the charge of licentiousness; but even in +pursuit of pleasure, he had been neither weak on the one hand, nor gross +on the other;--neither the headlong dupe, nor the callous sensualist: but +his graces, his rank, his wealth, had made his conquests a matter of too +easy purchase; and hence, like all voluptuaries, the part of his worldly +knowledge, which was the most fallible, was that which related to the +sex. He judged of women by a standard too distinct from that by which he +judged of men, and considered those foibles peculiar to the sex, which in +reality are incident to human nature. + +His natural disposition was grave and reflective; and though he was not +without wit, it was rarely used. He lived, necessarily, with the +frivolous and the ostentatious, yet ostentation and frivolity were +charges never brought against himself. As a diplomatist and a statesman, +he was of the old and erroneous school of intriguers; but his favourite +policy was the science of conciliation. He was one who would so far have +suited the present age, that no man could better have steered a nation +from the chances of war; James the First could not have been inspired +with a greater affection for peace; but the Peer's dexterity would have +made that peace as honourable as the King's weakness could have made it +degraded. Ambitious to a certain extent, but neither grasping nor mean, +he never obtained for his genius the full and extensive field it probably +deserved. He loved a happy life above all things; and he knew that while +activity is the spirit, fatigue is the bane, of happiness. + +In his day he enjoyed a large share of that public attention which +generally bequeaths fame; yet from several causes (of which his own +moderation is not the least) his present reputation is infinitely less +great than the opinions of his most distinguished cotemporaries +foreboded. + +It is a more difficult matter for men of high rank to become illustrious +to posterity, than for persons in a sterner and more wholesome walk of +life. Even the greatest among the distinguished men of the patrician +order, suffer in the eyes of the after-age for the very qualities, mostly +dazzling defects, or brilliant eccentricities, which made them most +popularly remarkable in their day. Men forgive Burns his amours and his +revellings with greater ease than they will forgive Bolingbroke and Byron +for the same offences. + +Our Earl was fond of the society of literary men; he himself was well, +perhaps even deeply, read. Certainly his intellectual acquisitions were +more profound than they have been generally esteemed, though with the +common subtlety of a ready genius, he could make the quick adaptation of +a timely fact, acquired for the occasion, appear the rich overflowing of +a copious erudition. He was a man who instantly perceived, and liberally +acknowledged, the merits of others. No connoisseur had a more felicitous +knowledge of the arts, or was more just in the general objects of his +patronage. In short, what with all his advantages, he was one whom an +aristocracy may boast of, though a people may forget; and if not a great +man, was at least a most remarkable lord. + +The Earl of--, in his last visit to his estates, had not forgotten to +seek out the eminent scholar who shed an honour upon his neighbourhood; +he had been greatly struck with the bearing and conversation of Aram, and +with the usual felicity with which the accomplished Earl adapted his +nature to those with whom he was thrown, he had succeeded in ingratiating +himself with Aram in return. He could not indeed persuade the haughty and +solitary Student to visit him at the castle; but the Earl did not disdain +to seek any one from whom he could obtain instruction, and he had twice +or thrice voluntarily encountered Aram, and effectually drawn him from +his reserve. The Earl now heard with some pleasure, and more surprise, +that the austere Recluse was about to be married to the beauty of the +county, and he resolved to seize the first occasion to call at the manor- +house to offer his compliments and congratulations to its inmates. + +Sensible men of rank, who, having enjoyed their dignity from their birth, +may reasonably be expected to grow occasionally tired of it; often like +mixing with those the most who are the least dazzled by the +condescension; I do not mean to say, with the vulgar parvenus who mistake +rudeness for independence;--no man forgets respect to another who knows +the value of respect to himself; but the respect should be paid easily; +it is not every Grand Seigneur, who like Louis XIVth., is only pleased +when he puts those he addresses out of countenance. + +There was, therefore, much in the simplicity of Lester's manners, and +those of his nieces, which rendered the family at the manor-house, +especial favourites with Lord--; and the wealthier but less honoured +squirearchs of the county, stiff in awkward pride, and bustling with yet +more awkward veneration, heard with astonishment and anger of the +numerous visits which his Lordship, in his brief sojourn at the castle, +always contrived to pay to the Lesters, and the constant invitations, +which they received to his most familiar festivities. + +Lord--was no sportsman, and one morning, when all his guests were +engaged among the stubbles of September, he mounted his quiet palfrey, +and gladly took his way to the Manor-house. + +It was towards the latter end of the month, and one of the earliest of +the autumnal fogs hung thinly over the landscape. As the Earl wound along +the sides of the hill on which his castle was built, the scene on which +he gazed below received from the grey mists capriciously hovering over +it, a dim and melancholy wildness. A broader and whiter vapour, that +streaked the lower part of the valley, betrayed the course of the +rivulet; and beyond, to the left, rose wan and spectral, the spire of the +little church adjoining Lester's abode. As the horseman's eye wandered to +this spot, the sun suddenly broke forth, and lit up as by enchantment, +the quiet and lovely hamlet embedded, as it were, beneath,--the cottages, +with their gay gardens and jasmined porches, the streamlet half in mist, +half in light, while here and there columns of vapour rose above its +surface like the chariots of the water genii, and broke into a thousand +hues beneath the smiles of the unexpected sun: But far to the right, the +mists around it yet unbroken, and the outline of its form only visible, +rose the lone house of the Student, as if there the sadder spirits of the +air yet rallied their broken armament of mist and shadow. + +The Earl was not a man peculiarly alive to scenery, but he now +involuntarily checked his horse, and gazed for a few moments on the +beautiful and singular aspect which the landscape had so suddenly +assumed. As he so gazed, he observed in a field at some little distance, +three or four persons gathered around a bank, and among them he thought +he recognised the comely form of Rowland Lester. A second inspection +convinced him that he was right in his conjecture, and, turning from the +road through a gap in the hedge, he made towards the group in question. +He had not proceeded far, before he saw, that the remainder of the party +was composed of Lester's daughters, the lover of the elder, and a fourth, +whom he recognised as a celebrated French botanist who had lately arrived +in England, and who was now making an amateur excursion throughout the +more attractive districts of the island. + +The Earl guessed rightly, that Monsieur de N--had not neglected to apply +to Aram for assistance in a pursuit which the latter was known to have +cultivated with such success, and that he had been conducted hither, as a +place affording some specimen or another not unworthy of research. He +now, giving his horse to his groom, joined the group. + + + + + CHAPTER III. + + WHEREIN THE EARL AND THE STUDENT CONVERSE ON GRAVE BUT + DELIGHTFUL MATTERS.--THE STUDENT'S NOTION OF THE ONLY EARTHLY + HAPPINESS. + + ARAM. If the witch Hope forbids us to be wise, + Yet when I turn to these--Woe's only friends, + And with their weird and eloquent voices calm + The stir and Babel of the world within, + I can but dream that my vex'd years at last + Shall find the quiet of a hermit's cell:-- + And, neighbouring not this hacked and jaded world, + Beneath the lambent eyes of the loved stars, + And, with the hollow rocks and sparry caves, + The tides, and all the many-music'd winds + + My oracles and co-mates;--watch my life + Glide down the Stream of Knowledge, and behold + Its waters with a musing stillness glass + The thousand hues of Nature and of Heaven. + --From Eugene Aram, a MS. Tragedy. + +The Earl continued with the party he had joined; and when their +occupation was concluded and they turned homeward, he accepted the +Squire's frank invitation to partake of some refreshment at the Manor- +house. It so chanced, or perhaps the Earl so contrived it, that Aram and +himself, in their way to the village lingered a little behind the rest, +and that their conversation was thus, for a few minutes, not altogether +general. + +"Is it I, Mr. Aram?" said the Earl smiling, "or is it Fate that has made +you a convert? The last time we sagely and quietly conferred together, +you contended that the more the circle of existence was contracted, the +more we clung to a state of pure and all self-dependent intellect, the +greater our chance of happiness. Thus you denied that we were rendered +happier by our luxuries, by our ambition, or by our affections. Love and +its ties were banished from your solitary Utopia. And you asserted that +the true wisdom of life lay solely in the cultivation--not of our +feelings, but our faculties. You know, I held a different doctrine: and +it is with the natural triumph of a hostile partizan, that I hear you are +about to relinquish the practice of one of your dogmas;--in consequence, +may I hope, of having forsworn the theory?" + +"Not so, my Lord," answered Aram, colouring slightly; "my weakness only +proves that my theory is difficult,--not that it is wrong. I still +venture to think it true. More pain than pleasure is occasioned us by +others--banish others, and you are necessarily the gainer. Mental +activity and moral quietude are the two states which, were they perfected +and united, would constitute perfect happiness. It is such a union which +constitutes all we imagine of Heaven, or conceive of the majestic +felicity of a God." + +"Yet, while you are on earth you will be (believe me) happier in the +state you are about to choose," said the Earl. "Who could look at that +enchanting face (the speaker directed his eyes towards Madeline) and not +feel that it gave a pledge of happiness that could not be broken?" + +It was not in the nature of Aram to like any allusion to himself, and +still less to his affections: he turned aside his head, and remained +silent: the wary Earl discovered his indiscretion immediately. + +"But let us put aside individual cases," said he,--"the meum and the tuum +forbid all argument:--and confess, that there is for the majority of +human beings a greater happiness in love than in the sublime state of +passionless intellect to which you would so chillingly exalt us. Has not +Cicero said wisely, that we ought no more to subject too slavishly our +affections, than to elevate them too imperiously into our masters? Neque +se nimium erigere, nec subjacere serviliter." + +"Cicero loved philosophizing better than philosophy," said Aram, coldly; +"but surely, my Lord, the affections give us pain as well as pleasure. +The doubt, the dread, the restlessness of love,--surely these prevent +the passion from constituting a happy state of mind; to me one knowledge +alone seems sufficient to embitter all its enjoyments,--the knowledge +that the object beloved must die. What a perpetuity of fear that +knowledge creates! The avalanche that may crush us depends upon a single +breath!" + +"Is not that too refined a sentiment? Custom surely blunts us to every +chance, every danger, that may happen to us hourly. Were the avalanche +over you for a day,--I grant your state of torture,--but had an avalanche +rested over you for years, and not yet fallen, you would forget that it +could ever fall; you would eat, sleep, and make love, as if it were not!" + +"Ha! my Lord, you say well--you say well," said Aram, with a marked +change of countenance; and, quickening his pace, he joined Lester's side, +and the thread of the previous conversation was broken off. + +The Earl afterwards, in walking through the gardens (an excursion which +he proposed himself, for he was somewhat of an horticulturist), took an +opportunity to renew the subject. + +"You will pardon me," said he, "but I cannot convince myself that man +would be happier were he without emotions; and that to enjoy life he +should be solely dependant on himself!" + +"Yet it seems to me," said Aram, "a truth easy of proof; if we love, we +place our happiness in others. The moment we place our happiness in +others, comes uncertainty, but uncertainty is the bane of happiness. +Children are the source of anxiety to their parents;--his mistress to the +lover. Change, accident, death, all menace us in each person whom we +regard. Every new tie opens new channels by which grief can invade us; +but, you will say, by which joy also can flow in;--granted! But in human +life is there not more grief than joy? What is it that renders the +balance even? What makes the staple of our happiness,--endearing to us +the life at which we should otherwise repine? It is the mere passive, yet +stirring, consciousness of life itself!--of the sun and the air of the +physical being; but this consciousness every emotion disturbs. Yet could +you add to its tranquillity an excitement that never exhausts itself,-- +that becomes refreshed, not sated, with every new possession, then you +would obtain happiness. There is only one excitement of this divine +order,--that of intellectual culture. Behold now my theory! Examine it-- +it contains no flaw. But if," renewed Aram, after a pause, "a man is +subject to fate solely in himself, not in others, he soon hardens his +mind against all fear, and prepares it for all events. A little +philosophy enables him to bear bodily pain, or the common infirmities of +flesh: by a philosophy somewhat deeper, he can conquer the ordinary +reverses of fortune, the dread of shame, and the last calamity of death. +But what philosophy could ever thoroughly console him for the ingratitude +of a friend, the worthlessness of a child, the death of a mistress? +Hence, only when he stands alone, can a man's soul say to Fate, 'I defy +thee.'" + +"You think then," said the Earl, reluctantly diverting the conversation +into a new channel "that in the pursuit of knowledge lies our only active +road to real happiness. Yet here how eternal must be the disappointments +even of the most successful! Does not Boyle tell us of a man who, after +devoting his whole life to the study of one mineral, confessed himself, +at last, ignorant of all its properties?" + +"Had the object of his study been himself, and not the mineral, he would +not have been so unsuccessful a student," said Aram, smiling. "Yet," +added he, in a graver tone, "we do indeed cleave the vast heaven of Truth +with a weak and crippled wing: and often we are appalled in our way by a +dread sense of the immensity around us, and of the inadequacy of our own +strength. But there is a rapture in the breath of the pure and difficult +air, and in the progress by which we compass earth, the while we draw +nearer to the stars,--that again exalts us beyond ourselves, and +reconciles the true student unto all things,--even to the hardest of them +all,--the conviction how feebly our performance can ever imitate the +grandeur of our ambition! As you see the spark fly upward,--sometimes not +falling to earth till it be dark and quenched,--thus soars, whither it +recks not, so that the direction be above, the luminous spirit of him who +aspires to Truth; nor will it back to the vile and heavy clay from which +it sprang, until the light which bore it upward be no more!" + + + + + CHAPTER IV. + + A DEEPER EXAMINATION INTO THE STUDENT'S HEART.--THE VISIT TO + THE CASTLE.--PHILOSOPHY PUT TO THE TRIAL. + + I weigh not fortune's frown or smile, + I joy not much in earthly joys, + I seek not state, I seek not stile, + I am not fond of fancy's toys; + I rest so pleased with what I have, + I wish no more, no more I crave. + --Joshua Sylvester. + +The reader must pardon me, if I somewhat clog his interest in my tale by +the brief conversations I have given, and must for a short while cast +myself on his indulgence and renew. It is not only the history of his +life, but the character and tone of Aram's mind, that I wish to stamp +upon my page. Fortunately, however, the path my story assumes is of such +a nature, that in order to effect this object, I shall never have to +desert, and scarcely again even to linger by, the way. + +Every one knows the magnificent moral of Goethe's "Faust!" Every one +knows that sublime discontent--that chafing at the bounds of human +knowledge--that yearning for the intellectual Paradise beyond, which "the +sworded angel" forbids us to approach--that daring, yet sorrowful state +of mind--that sense of defeat, even in conquest, which Goethe has +embodied,--a picture of the loftiest grief of which the soul is capable, +and which may remind us of the profound and august melancholy which the +Great Sculptor breathed into the repose of the noblest of mythological +heroes, when he represented the God resting after his labours, as if more +convinced of their vanity than elated with their extent! + +In this portrait, the grandeur of which the wild scenes that follow in +the drama we refer to, do not (strangely wonderful as they are) perhaps +altogether sustain, Goethe has bequeathed to the gaze of a calmer and +more practical posterity, the burning and restless spirit--the feverish +desire for knowledge more vague than useful, which characterised the +exact epoch in the intellectual history of Germany, in which the poem was +inspired and produced. + +At these bitter waters, the Marah of the streams of Wisdom, the soul of +the man whom we have made the hero of these pages, had also, and not +lightly, quaffed. The properties of a mind, more calm and stern than +belonged to the visionaries of the Hartz and the Danube, might indeed +have preserved him from that thirst after the impossibilities of +knowledge, which gives so peculiar a romance, not only to the poetry, but +the philosophy of the German people. But if he rejected the +superstitions, he did not also reject the bewilderments of the mind. He +loved to plunge into the dark and metaphysical subtleties which human +genius has called daringly forth from the realities of things:-- + + "To spin + + A shroud of thought, to hide him from the sun + + Of this familiar life, which seems to be, + + But is not--or is but quaint mockery + + Of all we would believe;--or sadly blame + + The jarring and inexplicable frame + + Of this wrong world: and then anatomize + + The purposes and thoughts of man, whose eyes + + Were closed in distant years; or widely guess + + The issue of the earth's great business, + + When we shall be, as we no longer are, + + Like babbling gossips, safe, who hear the war + + Of winds, and sigh!--but tremble not!" + +Much in him was a type, or rather forerunner, of the intellectual spirit +that broke forth when we were children, among our countrymen, and is now +slowly dying away amidst the loud events and absorbing struggles of the +awakening world. But in one respect he stood aloof from all his tribe--in +his hard indifference to worldly ambition, and his contempt of fame. As +some sages have seemed to think the universe a dream, and self the only +reality, so in his austere and collected reliance upon his own mind--the +gathering in, as it were, of his resources, he appeared to consider the +pomps of the world as shadows, and the life of his own spirit the only +substance. He had built a city and a tower within the Shinar of his own +heart, whence he might look forth, unscathed and unmoved, upon the deluge +that broke over the rest of earth. + +Only in one instance, and that, as we have seen, after much struggle, he +had given way to the emotions that agitate his kind, and had surrendered +himself to the dominion of another. This was against his theories--but +what theories ever resist love? In yielding, however, thus far, he seemed +more on his guard than ever against a broader encroachment. He had +admitted one 'fair spirit' for his 'minister,' but it was only with a +deeper fervour to invoke 'the desert' as 'his dwelling-place.' Thus, when +the Earl, who, like most practical judges of mankind, loved to apply to +each individual the motives that actuate the mass, and who only +unwillingly, and somewhat sceptically, assented to the exceptions, and +was driven to search for peculiar clues to the eccentric instance,-- +finding, to his secret triumph, that Aram had admitted one intruding +emotion into his boasted circle of indifference, imagined that he should +easily induce him (the spell once broken) to receive another, he was +surprised and puzzled to discover himself in the wrong. + +Lord--at that time had been lately called into the administration, and he +was especially anxious to secure the support of all the talent that he +could enlist in its behalf. The times were those in which party ran high, +and in which individual political writings were honoured with an +importance which the periodical press in general has now almost wholly +monopolized. On the side opposed to Government, writers of great name and +high attainments had shone with peculiar effect, and the Earl was +naturally desirous that they should be opposed by an equal array of +intellect on the side espoused by himself. The name alone of Eugene Aram, +at a day when scholarship was renown, would have been no ordinary +acquisition to the cause of the Earl's party; but that judicious and +penetrating nobleman perceived that Aram's abilities, his various +research, his extended views, his facility of argument, and the heat and +energy of his eloquence, might be rendered of an importance which could +not have been anticipated from the name alone, however eminent, of a +retired and sedentary scholar; he was not therefore without an interested +motive in the attentions he now lavished upon the Student, and in his +curiosity to put to the proof the disdain of all worldly enterprise and +worldly temptation, which Aram affected. He could not but think, that to +a man poor and lowly of circumstance, conscious of superior acquirements, +about to increase his wants by admitting to them a partner, and arrived +at that age when the calculations of interest and the whispers of +ambition have usually most weight;--he could not but think that to such +a man the dazzling prospects of social advancement, the hope of the high +fortunes, and the powerful and glittering influence which political life, +in England, offers to the aspirant, might be rendered altogether +irresistible. + +He took several opportunities in the course of the next week, of renewing +his conversation with Aram, and of artfully turning it into the channels +which he thought most likely to produce the impression he desired to +create. He was somewhat baffled, but by no means dispirited, in his +attempts; but he resolved to defer his ultimate proposition until it +could be made to the fullest advantage. He had engaged the Lesters to +promise to pass a day at the castle; and with great difficulty, and at +the earnest intercession of Madeline, Aram was prevailed upon to +accompany them. So extreme was his distaste to general society, and, from +some motive or another more powerful than mere constitutional reserve, so +invariably had he for years refused all temptations to enter it, that +natural as this concession was rendered by his approaching marriage to +one of the party, it filled him with a sort of terror and foreboding of +evil. It was as if he were passing beyond the boundary of some law, on +which the very tenure of his existence depended. After he had consented, +a trembling came over him; he hastily left the room, and till the day +arrived, was observed by his friends of the Manor-house to be more gloomy +and abstracted than they ever had known him, even at the earliest period +of acquaintance. + +On the day itself, as they proceeded to the castle, Madeline perceived +with a tearful repentance of her interference, that he sate by her side +cold and rapt; and that once or twice when his eyes dwelt upon her, it +was with an expression of reproach and distrust. + +It was not till they entered the lofty hall of the castle, when a vulgar +diffidence would have been most abashed, that Aram recovered himself. The +Earl was standing--the centre of a group in the recess of a window in the +saloon, opening upon an extensive and stately terrace. He came forward to +receive them with the polished and warm kindness which he bestowed upon +al his inferiors in rank. He complimented the sisters; he jested with +Lester; but to Aram only, he manifested less the courtesy of kindness +than of respect. He took his arm, and leaning on it with a light touch, +led him to the group at the window. It was composed of the most +distinguished public men in the country, and among them (the Earl himself +was connected through an illegitimate branch with the reigning monarch,) +was a prince of the blood royal. + +To these, whom he had prepared for the introduction, he severally, and +with an easy grace, presented Aram, and then falling back a few steps, he +watched with a keen but seemingly careless eye, the effect which so +sudden a contact with royalty itself would produce on the mind of the shy +and secluded Student, whom it was his object to dazzle and overpower. It +was at this moment that the native dignity of Aram, which his studies, +unworldly as they were, had certainly tended to increase, displayed +itself, in a trial which, poor as it was in abstract theory, was far from +despicable in the eyes of the sensible and practised courtier. He +received with his usual modesty, but not with his usual shrinking and +embarrassment on such occasions, the compliments he received; a certain +and far from ungraceful pride was mingled with his simplicity of +demeanour; no fluttering of manner, betrayed that he was either dazzled +or humbled by the presence in which he stood, and the Earl could not but +confess that there was never a more favourable opportunity for comparing +the aristocracy of genius with that of birth; it was one of those homely +every-day triumphs of intellect, which please us more than they ought to +do, for, after all, they are more common than the men of courts are +willing to believe. + +Lord--did not however long leave Aram to the support of his own +unassisted presence of mind and calmness of nerve; he advanced, and led +the conversation, with his usual tact, into a course which might at once +please Aram, and afford him the opportunity to shine. The Earl had +imported from Italy some of the most beautiful specimens of classic +sculpture which this country now possesses. These were disposed in niches +around the magnificent apartment in which the guest were assembled, and +as the Earl pointed them out, and illustrated each from the beautiful +anecdotes and golden allusions of antiquity, he felt that he was +affording to Aram a gratification he could never have experienced before; +and in the expression of which, the grace and copiousness of his learning +would find vent. Nor was he disappointed. The cheek, which till then had +retained its steady paleness, now caught the glow of enthusiasm; and in a +few moments there was not a person in the group, who did not feel, and +cheerfully feel, the superiority of the one who, in birth and fortune, +was immeasureably the lowest of all. + +The English aristocracy, whatever be the faults of their education, (and +certainly the name of the faults is legion!) have at least the merit of +being alive to the possession, and easily warmed to the possessor, of +classical attainment: perhaps even from this very merit spring many of +the faults we allude to; they are too apt to judge all talent by a +classical standard, and all theory by classical experience. Without,-- +save in very rare instances,--the right to boast of any deep learning, +they are far more susceptible than the nobility of any other nation to +the spiritum Camoenae. They are easily and willingly charmed back to the +studies which, if not eagerly pursued in youth, are still entwined with +all their youth's brightest recollections; the schoolboy's prize, and the +master's praise,--the first ambition, and its first reward. A felicitous +quotation, a delicate allusion, is never lost upon their ear; and the +veneration which at Eton they bore to the best verse-maker in the school, +tinctures their judgment of others throughout life, mixing I know not +what, both of liking and esteem, with their admiration of one who uses +his classical weapons with a scholar's dexterity, not a pedant's +inaptitude: for such a one there is a sort of agreeable confusion in +their respect; they are inclined, unconsciously, to believe that he must +necessarily be a high gentleman--ay, and something of a good fellow into +the bargain. + +It happened then that Aram could not have dwelt upon a theme more likely +to arrest the spontaneous interest of those with whom he now conversed-- +men themselves of more cultivated minds than usual, and more capable than +most (from that acute perception of real talent, which is produced by +habitual political warfare,) of appreciating not only his endowments, but +his facility in applying them. + +"You are right, my Lord," said Sir--, the whipper-in of the--party, +taking the Earl aside; "he would be an inestimable pamphleteer." + +"Could you get him to write us a sketch of the state of parties; +luminous, eloquent?'" whispered a lord of the bed-chamber. + +The Earl answered by a bon mot, and turned to a bust of Caracalla. + +The hours at that time were (in the country at least) not late, and the +Earl was one of the first introducers of the polished fashion of France, +by which we testify a preference of the society of the women to that of +our own sex; so that, in leaving the dining-room, it was not so late but +that the greater part of the guests walked out upon the terrace, and +admired the expanse of country which it overlooked, and along which the +thin veil of the twilight began now to hover. + +Having safely deposited his royal guest at a whist table, and thus left +himself a free agent, the Earl, inviting Aram to join him, sauntered +among the loiterers on the terrace for a few moments, and then descended +a broad flight of steps, which brought them into a more shaded and +retired walk; on either side of which rows of orange-trees gave forth +their fragrance, while, to the right, sudden and numerous vistas were cut +among the more irregular and dense foliage, affording glimpses--now of +some rustic statue--now of some lone temple--now of some quaint fountain, +on the play of whose waters the first stars had begun to tremble. + +It was one of those magnificent gardens, modelled from the stately +glories of Versailles, which it is now the mode to decry, but which +breathe so unequivocally of the Palace. I grant that they deck Nature +with somewhat too prolix a grace; but is beauty always best seen in +deshabille? And with what associations of the brightest traditions +connected with Nature they link her more luxuriant loveliness! Must we +breathe only the malaria of Rome to be capable of feeling the interest +attached to the fountain or the statue? + +"I am glad," said the Earl, "that you admired my bust of Cicero--it is +from an original very lately discovered. What grandeur in the brow!-- +what energy in the mouth, and downward bend of the head! It is pleasant +even to imagine we gaze upon the likeness of so bright a spirit;--and +confess, at least of Cicero, that in reading the aspirations and +outpourings of his mind, you have felt your apathy to Fame melting away; +you have shared the desire to live to the future age,--'the longing after +immortality?" + +"Was it not that longing," replied Aram, "which gave to the character of +Cicero its poorest and most frivolous infirmity? Has it not made him, +glorious as he is despite of it, a byword in the mouths of every +schoolboy? Wherever you mention his genius, do you not hear an appendix +on his vanity?" + +"Yet without that vanity, that desire for a name with posterity, would he +have been equally great--would he equally have cultivated his genius?" + +"Probably, my Lord, he would not have equally cultivated his genius, but +in reality he might have been equally great. A man often injures his mind +by the means that increase his genius. You think this, my Lord, a +paradox, but examine it. How many men of genius have been but ordinary +men, take them from the particular objects in which they shine. Why is +this, but that in cultivating one branch of intellect they neglect the +rest? Nay, the very torpor of the reasoning faculty has often kindled the +imaginative. Lucretius composed his sublime poem under the influence of a +delirium. The susceptibilities that we create or refine by the pursuit of +one object, weaken our general reason; and I may compare with some +justice the powers of the mind to the faculties of the body, in which +squinting is occasioned by an inequality of strength in the eyes, and +discordance of voice by the same inequality in the ears." + +"I believe you are right," said the Earl; "yet I own I willingly forgive +Cicero for his vanity, if it contributed to the production of his +orations and his essays; and he is a greater man, even with his vanity +unconquered, than if he had conquered his foible, and in doing so taken +away the incitements to his genius." + +"A greater man in the world's eye, my Lord, but scarcely in reality. Had +Homer written his Iliad and then burnt it, would his genius have been +less? The world would have known nothing of him, but would he have been a +less extraordinary man on that account? We are too apt, my Lord, to +confound greatness and fame. + +"There is one circumstance," added Aram, after a pause, "that should +diminish our respect for renown. Errors of life, as well as foibles of +characters, are often the real enhancers of celebrity. Without his +errors, I doubt whether Henri Quatre would have become the idol of a +people. How many Whartons has the world known, who, deprived of their +frailties, had been inglorious! The light that you so admire, reaches you +only through the distance of time, on account of the angles and +unevenness of the body whence it emanates. Were the surface of the moon +smooth, it would be invisible." + +"I admire your illustrations," said the Earl; "but I reluctantly submit +to your reasonings. You would then neglect your powers, lest they should +lead you into errors?" + +"Pardon me, my Lord; it is because I think all the powers should be +cultivated, that I quarrel with the exclusive cultivation of one. And it +is only because I would strengthen the whole mind that I dissent from the +reasonings of those who tell you to consult your genius." + +"But your genius may serve mankind more than this general cultivation of +intellect?" + +"My Lord," replied Aram, with a mournful cloud upon his countenance; +"that argument may have weight with those who think mankind can be +effectually served, though they may be often dazzled, by the labours of +an individual. But, indeed, this perpetual talk of 'mankind' signifies +nothing: each of us consults his proper happiness, and we consider him a +madman who ruins his own peace of mind by an everlasting fretfulness of +philanthropy." + +This was a doctrine that half pleased, half displeased the Earl--it +shadowed forth the most dangerous notions which Aram entertained. + +"Well, well," said the noble host, as, after a short contest on the +ground of his guest's last remark, they left off where they began, "Let +us drop these general discussions: I have a particular proposition to +unfold. We have, I trust, Mr. Aram, seen enough of each other, to feel +that we can lay a sure foundation for mutual esteem. For my part, I own +frankly, that I have never met with one who has inspired me with a +sincerer admiration. I am desirous that your talents and great learning +should be known in the widest sphere. You may despise fame, but you must +permit your friends the weakness to wish you justice, and themselves +triumph. You know my post in the present administration--the place of my +secretary is one of great trust--some influence, and large emolument. I +offer it to you--accept it, and you will confer upon me an honour and an +obligation. You will have your own separate house, or apartments in mine, +solely appropriated to your use. Your privacy will never be disturbed. +Every arrangement shall be made for yourself and your bride, that either +of you can suggest. Leisure for your own pursuits you will have, too, in +abundance--there are others who will perform all that is toilsome in your +office. In London, you will see around you the most eminent living men of +all nations, and in all pursuits. If you contract, (which believe me is +possible--it is a tempting game,) any inclination towards public life, +you will have the most brilliant opportunities afforded you, and I +foretell you the most signal success. Stay yet one moment:--for this you +will owe me no thanks. Were I not sensible that I consult my own +interests in this proposal, I should be courtier enough to suppress it." + +"My Lord," said Aram, in a voice which, in spite of its calmness, +betrayed that he was affected, "it seldom happens to a man of my secluded +habits, and lowly pursuits, to have the philosophy he affects put to so +severe a trial. I am grateful to you--deeply grateful for an offer so +munificent--so undeserved. I am yet more grateful that it allows me to +sound the strength of my own heart, and to find that I did not too highly +rate it. Look, my Lord, from the spot where we now stand" (the moon had +risen, and they had now returned to the terrace): "in the vale below, and +far among those trees, lies my home. More than two years ago, I came +thither, to fix the resting-place of a sad and troubled spirit. There +have I centered all my wishes and my hopes; and there may I breathe my +last! My Lord, you will not think me ungrateful, that my choice is made; +and you will not blame my motive, though you may despise my wisdom." + +"But," said the Earl astonished, "you cannot foresee all the advantages +you would renounce. At your age--with your intellect--to choose the +living sepulchre of a hermitage--it was wise to reconcile yourself to it, +but not to prefer it! Nay, nay; consider--pause. I am in no haste for +your decision; and what advantages have you in your retreat, that you +will not possess in a greater degree with me? Quiet?--I pledge it to you +under my roof. Solitude?--you shall have it at your will. Books?--what +are those which you, which any individual possesses, to the public +institutions, the magnificent collections, of the metropolis? What else +is it you enjoy yonder, and cannot enjoy with me?" + +"Liberty!" said Aram energetically.--"Liberty! the wild sense of +independence. Could I exchange the lonely stars and the free air, for the +poor lights and feverish atmosphere of worldly life? Could I surrender my +mood, with its thousand eccentricities and humours--its cloud and shadow- +-to the eyes of strangers, or veil it from their gaze by the irksomeness +of an eternal hypocrisy? No, my Lord! I am too old to turn disciple to +the world! You promise me solitude and quiet. What charm would they have +for me, if I felt they were held from the generosity of another? The +attraction of solitude is only in its independence. You offer me the +circle, but not the magic which made it holy. Books! They, years since, +would have tempted me; but those whose wisdom I have already drained, +have taught me now almost enough: and the two Books, whose interest can +never be exhausted--Nature and my own Heart--will suffice for the rest of +life. My Lord, I require no time for consideration." + +"And you positively refuse me?" + +"Gratefully refuse you." + +The Earl walked peevishly away for one moment; but it was not in his +nature to lose himself for more. + +"Mr. Aram," said he frankly, and holding out his hand; "you have chosen +nobly, if not wisely; and though I cannot forgive you for depriving me of +such a companion, I thank you for teaching me such a lesson. Henceforth, +I will believe, that philosophy may exist in practice; and that a +contempt for wealth and for honours, is not the mere profession of +discontent. This is the first time, in a various and experienced life, +that I have found a man sincerely deaf to the temptations of the world,-- +and that man of such endowments! If ever you see cause to alter a theory +that I still think erroneous, though lofty--remember me; and at all +times, and on all occasions," he added, with a smile, "when a friend +becomes a necessary evil, call to mind our starlit walk on the castle +terrace." + +Aram did not mention to Lester, or even Madeline, the above conversation. +The whole of the next day he shut himself up at home; and when he again +appeared at the Manor-house, he heard with evident satisfaction that the +Earl had been suddenly summoned on state affairs to London. + +There was an unaccountable soreness in Aram's mind, which made him feel a +resentment--a suspicion against all who sought to lure him from his +retreat. "Thank Heaven!" thought he, when he heard of the Earl's +departure; "we shall not meet for another year!" He was mistaken.-- +Another year! + + + + + CHAPTER V. + + IN WHICH THE STORY RETURNS TO WALTER AND THE CORPORAL.--THE + RENCONTRE WITH A STRANGER, AND HOW THE STRANGER PROVES TO BE + NOT ALTOGETHER A STRANGER. + + Being got out of town in the road to Penaflor, master of my own + action, and forty good ducats; the first thing I did was to + give my mule her head, and to go at what pace she pleased. + . . . . . . . . . . . . . + I left them in the inn, and continued my journey; I was hardly + got half-a-mile farther, when I met a cavalier very genteel, + --Gil Blas. + +It was broad and sunny noon on the second day of their journey, as Walter +Lester, and the valorous attendant with whom it had pleased Fate to endow +him, rode slowly into a small town in which the Corporal in his own +heart, had resolved to bait his roman-nosed horse and refresh himself. +Two comely inns had the younger traveller of the twain already passed +with an indifferent air, as if neither bait nor refreshment made any part +of the necessary concerns of this habitable world. And in passing each of +the said hostelries, the roman-nosed horse had uttered a snort of +indignant surprise, and the worthy Corporal had responded to the +quadrupedal remonstrance by a loud hem. It seemed, however, that Walter +heard neither of the above significant admonitions; and now the town was +nearly passed, and a steep hill that seemed winding away into eternity, +already presented itself to the rueful gaze of the Corporal. + +"The boy's clean mad," grunted Bunting to himself--"must do my duty to +him--give him a hint." + +Pursuant to this notable and conscientious determination, Bunting jogged +his horse into a trot, and coming alongside of Walter, put his hand to +his hat and said: + +"Weather warm, your honour--horses knocked up--next town far as hell!-- +halt a bit here--augh!" + +"Ha! that is very true, Bunting; I had quite forgotten the length of our +journey. But see, there is a sign-post yonder, we will take advantage of +it." + +"Augh! and your honour's right--fit for the forty-second;" said the +Corporal, falling back; and in a few moments he and his charger found +themselves, to their mutual delight, entering the yard of a small, but +comfortable-looking inn. + +The Host, a man of a capacious stomach and a rosy cheek--in short, a host +whom your heart warms to see, stepped forth immediately, held the stirrup +for the young Squire, (for the Corporal's movements were too stately to +be rapid,) and ushered him with a bow, a smile, and a flourish of his +napkin, into one of those little quaint rooms, with cupboards bright with +high glasses and old china, that it pleases us still to find extant in +the old-fashioned inns, in our remoter roads and less Londonized +districts. + +Mine host was an honest fellow, and not above his profession; he stirred +the fire, dusted the table, brought the bill of fare, and a newspaper +seven days old, and then bustled away to order the dinner and chat with +the Corporal. That accomplished hero had already thrown the stables into +commotion, and frightening the two ostlers from their attendance on the +steeds of more peaceable men, had set them both at leading his own horse +and his master's to and fro' the yard, to be cooled into comfort and +appetite. + +He was now busy in the kitchen, where he had seized the reins of +government, sent the scullion to see if the hens had laid any fresh eggs, +and drawn upon himself the objurgations of a very thin cook with a +squint. + +"Tell you, ma'am, you are wrong--quite wrong--have seen the world--old +soldier--and know how to fry eggs better than any she in the three +kingdoms--hold jaw--mind your own business--where's the frying-pan?-- +baugh!" + +So completely did the Corporal feel himself in his element, while he was +putting everybody else out of the way; and so comfortable did he find his +new quarters, that he resolved that the "bait" should be at all events +prolonged until his good cheer had been deliberately digested, and his +customary pipe duly enjoyed. + +Accordingly, but not till Walter had dined, for our man of the world knew +that it is the tendency of that meal to abate our activity, while it +increases our good humour, the Corporal presented himself to his master, +with a grave countenance. + +"Greatly vexed, your honour--who'd have thought it?--but those large +animals are bad on long march." + +"Why what's the matter now, Bunting?" + +"Only, Sir, that the brown horse is so done up, that I think it would be +as much as life's worth to go any farther for several hours." + +"Very well, and if I propose staying here till the evening?--we have +ridden far, and are in no great hurry." + +"To be sure not--sure and certain not," cried the Corporal. "Ah, Master, +you know how to command, I see. Nothing like discretion--discretion, Sir, +is a jewel. Sir, it is more than jewel--it's a pair of stirrups!" + +"A what? Bunting." + +"Pair of stirrups, your honour. Stirrups help us to get on, so does +discretion; to get off, ditto discretion. Men without stirrups look fine, +ride bold, tire soon: men without discretion cut dash, but knock up all +of a crack. Stirrups--but what sinnifies? Could say much more, your +honour, but don't love chatter." + +"Your simile is ingenious enough, if not poetical," said Walter; "but it +does not hold good to the last. When a man falls, his discretion should +preserve him; but he is often dragged in the mud by his stirrups." + +"Beg pardon--you're wrong," quoth the Corporal, nothing taken by +surprise; "spoke of the new-fangled stirrups that open, crank, when we +fall, and let us out of the scrape." [Note: Of course the Corporal does +not speak of the patent stirrup: that would be an anachronism.] + +Satisfied with this repartee, the Corporal now (like an experienced +jester) withdrew to leave its full effect on the admiration of his +master. A little before sunset the two travellers renewed their journey. + +"I have loaded the pistols, Sir," said the Corporal, pointing to the +holsters on Walter's saddle. "It is eighteen miles off to the next town-- +will be dark long before we get there." + +"You did very right, Bunting, though I suppose there is not much danger +to be apprehended from the gentlemen of the highway." + +"Why the Landlord do say the revarse, your honour,--been many robberies +lately in these here parts." + +"Well, we are fairly mounted, and you are a formidable-looking fellow, +Bunting." + +"Oh! your honour," quoth the Corporal, turning his head stiffly away, +with a modest simper, "You makes me blush; though, indeed, bating that I +have the military air, and am more in the prime of life, your honour is +well nigh as awkward a gentleman as myself to come across." + +"Much obliged for the compliment!" said Walter, pushing his horse a +little forward--the Corporal took the hint and fell back. + +It was now that beautiful hour of twilight when lovers grow especially +tender. The young traveller every instant threw his dark eyes upward, and +thought--not of Madeline, but her sister. The Corporal himself grew +pensive, and in a few moments his whole soul was absorbed in +contemplating the forlorn state of the abandoned Jacobina. + +In this melancholy and silent mood, they proceeded onward till the shades +began to deepen; and by the light of the first stars Walter beheld a +small, spare gentleman riding before him on an ambling nag, with cropped +ears and mane. The rider, as he now came up to him, seemed to have passed +the grand climacteric, but looked hale and vigorous; and there was a +certain air of staid and sober aristocracy about him, which involuntarily +begat your respect. + +He looked hard at Walter as the latter approached, and still more hard at +the Corporal. He seemed satisfied with the survey. + +"Sir," said he, slightly touching his hat to Walter, and with an +agreeable though rather sharp intonation of voice, "I am very glad to see +a gentleman of your appearance travelling my road. Might I request the +honour of being allowed to join you so far as you go? To say the truth, I +am a little afraid of encountering those industrious gentlemen who have +been lately somewhat notorious in these parts; and it may be better for +all of us to ride in as strong a party as possible." + +"Sir," replied Walter, eyeing in his turn the speaker, and in his turn +also feeling satisfied with the scrutiny, "I am going to--, where I shall +pass the night on my way to town; and shall be very happy in your +company." + +The Corporal uttered a loud hem; that penetrating man of the world was +not too well pleased with the advances of a stranger. + +"What fools them boys be!" thought he, very discontentedly; "howsomever, +the man does seem like a decent country gentleman, and we are two to one: +besides, he's old, little, and--augh, baugh--I dare say, we are safe +enough, for all he can do." + +The Stranger possessed a polished and well-bred demeanour; he talked +freely and copiously, and his conversation was that of a shrewd and +cultivated man. He informed Walter that, not only the roads had been +infested by those more daring riders common at that day, and to whose +merits we ourselves have endeavoured to do justice in a former work of +blessed memory, but that several houses had been lately attempted, and +two absolutely plundered. + +"For myself," he added, "I have no money, to signify, about my person: my +watch is only valuable to me for the time it has been in my possession; +and if the rogues robbed one civilly, I should not so much mind +encountering them; but they are a desperate set, and use violence when +there is nothing to be got by it. Have you travelled far to-day, Sir?" + +"Some six or seven-and-twenty miles," replied Walter. "I am proceeding to +London, and not willing to distress my horses by too rapid a journey." + +"Very right, very good; and horses, Sir, are not now what they used to be +when I was a young man. Ah, what wagers I used to win then! Horses +galloped, Sir, when I was twenty; they trotted when I was thirty-five; +but they only amble now. Sir, if it does not tax your patience too +severely, let us give our nags some hay and water at the half-way house +yonder." + +Walter assented; they stopped at a little solitary inn by the side of the +road, and the host came out with great obsequiousness when he heard the +voice of Walter's companion. + +"Ah, Sir Peter!" said he, "and how be'st your honour--fine night, Sir +Peter--hope you'll get home safe, Sir Peter." + +"Safe--ay! indeed, Jock, I hope so too. Has all been quiet here this last +night or two?" + +"Whish, Sir!" whispered my host, jerking his thumb back towards the +house; "there be two ugly customers within I does not know: they have got +famous good horses, and are drinking hard. I can't say as I knows any +thing agen 'em, but I think your honours had better be jogging." + +"Aha! thank ye, Jock, thank ye. Never mind the hay now," said Sir Peter, +pulling away the reluctant mouth of his nag; and turning to Walter, +"Come, Sir, let us move on. Why, zounds! where is that servant of yours?" + +Walter now perceived, with great vexation, that the Corporal had +disappeared within the alehouse; and looking through the casement, on +which the ruddy light of the fire played cheerily, he saw the man of the +world lifting a little measure of "the pure creature" to his lips; and +close by the hearth, at a small, round table, covered with glasses, +pipes, he beheld two men eyeing the tall Corporal very wistfully, and of +no prepossessing appearance themselves. One, indeed, as the fire played +full on his countenance, was a person of singularly rugged and sinister +features; and this man, he now remarked, was addressing himself with a +grim smile to the Corporal, who, setting down his little "noggin," +regarded him with a stare, which appeared to Walter to denote +recognition. This survey was the operation of a moment; for Sir Peter +took it upon himself to despatch the landlord into the house, to order +forth the unseasonable carouser; and presently the Corporal stalked out, +and having solemnly remounted, the whole trio set onward in a brisk trot. +As soon as they were without sight of the ale-house, the Corporal brought +the aquiline profile of his gaunt steed on a level with his master's +horse. + +"Augh, Sir!" said he, with more than his usual energy of utterance, "I +see'd him!" + +"Him! whom?" + +"Man with ugly face what drank at Peter Dealtry's, and knew Master Aram,- +-knew him in a crack,--sure he's a Tartar!" + +"What! does your servant recognize one of those suspicious fellows whom +Jock warned us against?" cried Sir Peter, pricking up his ears. + +"So it seems, Sir," said Walter: "he saw him once before, many miles +hence; but I fancy he knows nothing really to his prejudice." + +"Augh!" cried the Corporal; "he's d--d ugly any how!" + +"That's a tall fellow of yours," said Sir Peter, jerking up his chin with +that peculiar motion common to the brief in stature, when they are +covetous of elongation. "He looks military:--has he been in the army? Ay, +I thought so; one of the King of Prussia's grenadiers, I suppose? Faith, +I hear hoofs behind!" + +"Hem!" cried the Corporal, again coming alongside of his master. "Beg +pardon, Sir--served in the 42nd--nothing like regular line--stragglers +always cut off--had rather not straggle just now--enemy behind!" + +Walter looked back, and saw two men approaching them at a hand-gallop. +"We are a match at least for them, Sir," said he, to his new +acquaintance. + +"I am devilish glad I met you," was Sir Peter's rather selfish reply. + +" 'Tis he! 'tis the devil!" grunted the Corporal, as the two men now +gained their side and pulled up; and Walter recognised the faces he had +marked in the ale-house. + +"Your servant, gentlemen," quoth the uglier of the two; "you ride fast--" + +"And ready;--bother--baugh!" chimed in the Corporal, plucking a gigantic +pistol from his holster, without any farther ceremony. + +"Glad to hear it, Sir!" said the hard-featured Stranger, nothing dashed. +"But I can tell you a secret!" + +"What's that--augh?" said the Corporal, cocking his pistol. + +"Whoever hurts you, friend, cheats the gallows!" replied the stranger, +laughing, and spurring on his horse, to be out of reach of any practical +answer with which the Corporal might favour him. But Bunting was a +prudent man, and not apt to be choleric. + +"Bother!" said he, and dropped his pistol, as the other stranger followed +his ill-favoured comrade. + +"You see we are too strong for them!" cried Sir Peter, gaily; "evidently +highwaymen! How very fortunate that I should have fallen in with you!" + +A shower of rain now began to fall. Sir Peter looked serious--he halted +abruptly--unbuckled his cloak, which had been strapped before his saddle- +-wrapped himself up in it--buried his face in the collar--muffled his +chin with a red handkerchief, which he took out of his pocket, and then +turning to Walter, he said to him, "What! no cloak, Sir? no wrapper even? +Upon my soul I am very sorry I have not another handkerchief to lend +you!" + +"Man of the world--baugh!" grunted the Corporal, and his heart quite +warmed to the stranger he had at first taken for a robber. + +"And now, Sir," said Sir Peter, patting his nag, and pulling up his +cloak-collar still higher, "let us go gently; there is no occasion for +hurry. Why distress our horses?--" + +"Really, Sir," said Walter, smiling, "though I have a great regard for my +horse, I have some for myself; and I should rather like to be out of this +rain as soon as possible." + +"Oh, ah! you have no cloak. I forgot that; to be sure--to be sure, let us +trot on, gently--though--gently. Well, Sir, as I was saying, horses are +not so swift as they were. The breed is bought up by the French! I +remember once, Johnny Courtland and I, after dining at my house, till the +champagne had played the dancing-master to our brains, mounted our +horses, and rode twenty miles for a cool thousand the winner. I lost it, +Sir, by a hair's breadth; but I lost it on purpose; it would have half +ruined Johnny Courtland to have paid me, and he had that delicacy, Sir,-- +he had that delicacy, that he would not have suffered me to refuse taking +his money,--so what could I do, but lose on purpose? You see I had no +alternative!" + +"Pray, Sir," said Walter, charmed and astonished at so rare an instance +of the generosity of human friendships--"Pray, Sir, did I not hear you +called Sir Peter, by the landlord of the little inn? can it be, since you +speak so familiarly of Mr. Courtland, that I have the honour to address +Sir Peter Hales?" + +"Indeed that is my name," replied the gentleman, with some surprise in +his voice. "But I have never had the honour of seeing you before." + +"Perhaps my name is not unfamiliar to you," said Walter. "And among my +papers I have a letter addressed to you from my uncle Rowland Lester. + +"God bless me!" cried Sir Peter, "What Rowy!--well, indeed I am overjoyed +to hear of him. So you are his nephew? Pray tell me all about him, a +wild, gay, rollicking fellow still, eh?" Always fencing, sa--sa! or +playing at billiards, or hot in a steeple chace; there was not a jollier, +better-humoured fellow in the world than Rowy Lester. + +"You forget, Sir Peter," said Walter, laughing at a description so unlike +his sober and steady uncle, "that some years have passed since the time +you speak of." + +"Ah, and so there have," replied Sir Peter; "and what does your uncle say +of me?" + +"That, when he knew you, you were generosity, frankness, hospitality +itself." + +"Humph, humph!" said Sir Peter, looking extremely disconcerted, a +confusion which Walter imputed solely to modesty. "I was hairbrained +foolish fellow then, quite a boy, quite a boy; but bless me, it rains +sharply, and you have no cloak. But we are close on the town now. An +excellent inn is the "Duke of Cumberland's Head," you will have charming +accommodation there." + +"What, Sir Peter, you know this part of the country well!" + +"Pretty well, pretty well; indeed I live near, that is to say not very +far from, the town. This turn, if you please. We separate here. I have +brought you a little out of your way--not above a mile or two--for fear +the robbers should attack me if I was left alone. I had quite forgot you +had no cloak. That's your road--this mine. Aha! so Rowy Lester is still +alive and hearty, the same excellent, wild fellow, no doubt. Give my +kindest remembrance to him when you write. Adieu, Sir." + +This latter speech having been delivered during a halt, the Corporal had +heard it: he grinned delightedly as he touched his hat to Sir Peter, who +now trotted off, and muttered to his young master:-- + +"Most sensible man, that, Sir!" + + + + + CHAPTER VI. + + SIR PETER DISPLAYED.--ONE MAN OF THE WORLD SUFFERS FROM + ANOTHER.--THE INCIDENT OF THE BRIDLE BEGETS THE INCIDENT OF + THE SADDLE; THE INCIDENT OF THE SADDLE BEGETS THE INCIDENT OF + THE WHIP; THE INCIDENT OF THE WHIP BEGETS WHAT THE READER MUST + READ TO SEE. + + Nihil est aliud magnum quam multa minuta. + --Vetus Auctor. + + [Nor is their anything that hath so great + a power as the aggregate of small things.] + +"And so," said Walter, the next morning to the head waiter, who was +busied about their preparations for breakfast; "and so, Sir Peter Hales, +you say, lives within a mile of the town?" + +"Scarcely a mile, Sir,--black or green? you passed the turn to his house +last night;--Sir, the eggs are quite fresh this morning. This inn belongs +to Sir Peter." + +"Oh!--Does Sir Peter see much company?" + +The waiter smiled. + +"Sir Peter gives very handsome dinners, Sir; twice a year! A most clever +gentleman, Sir Peter! They say he is the best manager of property in the +whole county. Do you like Yorkshire cake?--toast? yes, Sir!" + +"So so," said Walter to himself, "a pretty true description my uncle gave +me of this gentleman. 'Ask me too often to dinner, indeed!'--'offer me +money if I want it!'--'spend a month at his house!'--'most hospitable +fellow in the world!'--My uncle must have been dreaming." + +Walter had yet to learn, that the men most prodigal when they have +nothing but expectations, are often most thrifty when they know the +charms of absolute possession. Besides, Sir Peter had married a Scotch +lady, and was blessed with eleven children! But was Sir Peter Hales much +altered? Sir Peter Hales was exactly the same man in reality that he +always had been. Once he was selfish in extravagance; he was now selfish +in thrift. He had always pleased himself, and damned other people; that +was exactly what he valued himself on doing now. But the most absurd +thing about Sir Peter was, that while he was for ever extracting use from +every one else, he was mightily afraid of being himself put to use. He +was in parliament, and noted for never giving a frank out of his own +family. Yet withal, Sir Peter Hales was still an agreeable fellow; nay, +he was more liked and much more esteemed than ever. There is something +conciliatory in a saving disposition; but people put themselves in a +great passion when a man is too liberal with his own. It is an insult on +their own prudence. "What right has he to be so extravagant? What an +example to our servants!" But your close neighbour does not humble you. +You love your close neighbour; you respect your close neighbour; you have +your harmless jest against him--but he is a most respectable man. + +"A letter, Sir, and a parcel, from Sir Peter Hales," said the waiter, +entering. + +The parcel was a bulky, angular, awkward packet of brown paper, sealed +once and tied with the smallest possible quantity of string; it was +addressed to Mr. James Holwell, Saddler,--Street,--The letter was to-- +Lester Esq., and ran thus, written in a very neat, stiff, Italian +character. + +"Dr Sr, + +"I trust you had no difficulty in findg ye Duke of Cumberland's Head, it +is an excellent In. + +"I greatly regt yt you are unavoidy oblig'd to go on to Londn; for, +otherwise I shd have had the sincerest please in seeing you here at dinr, +introducing you to Ly Hales. Anothr time I trust we may be more +fortunate. + +"As you pass thro' ye litte town of ..., exactly 21 miles from hence, on +the road to Londn, will you do me the favr to allow your servt to put the +little parcel I send into his pockt, drop it as directd. It is a bridle I +am forc'd to return. Country workn are such bungrs. + +"I shd most certainy have had ye honr to wait on you persony, but the +rain has given me a mo seve cold;--hope you have escap'd, tho' by ye by, +you had no cloke, nor wrappr! + +"My kindest regards to your mo excellent unce. I am quite sure he's the +same fine merry fellw he always was,--tell him so! + +"Dr Sr, Yours faithy, + +"Peter Grindlescrew Hales. + +"P.S. You know perhs yt poor Jno Courtd, your uncle's mo intime friend, +lives in ..., the town in which your servt will drop ye bride. He is much +alter'd,--poor Jno!" + +"Altered! alteration then seems the fashion with my uncle's friends!" +thought Walter, as he rang for the Corporal, and consigned to his charge +the unsightly parcel. + +"It is to be carried twenty-one miles at the request of the gentleman we +met last night,--a most sensible man, Bunting." + +"Augh--whaugh,--your honour!" grunted the Corporal, thrusting the bridle +very discontentedly into his pocket, where it annoyed him the whole +journey, by incessantly getting between his seat of leather and his seat +of honour. It is a comfort to the inexperienced, when one man of the +world smarts from the sagacity of another; we resign ourselves more +willingly to our fate. Our travellers resumed their journey, and in a few +minutes, from the cause we have before assigned, the Corporal became +thoroughly out of humour. + +"Pray, Bunting," said Walter, calling his attendant to his side, "do you +feel sure that the man we met yesterday at the alehouse, is the same you +saw at Grassdale some months ago?" + +"Damn it!" cried the Corporal quickly, and clapping his hand behind. + +"How, Sir!" + +"Beg pardon, your honour--slip tongue, but this confounded parcel!--augh +--bother!" + +"Why don't you carry it in your hand?" + +"'Tis so ungainsome, and be d--d to it; and how can I hold parcel and +pull in this beast, which requires two hands; his mouth's as hard as a +brickbat,--augh!" + +"You have not answered my question yet?" + +"Beg pardon, your honour. Yes, certain sure the man's the same; phiz not +to be mistaken." + +"It is strange," said Walter, musing, "that Aram should know a man, who, +if not a highwayman as we suspected, is at least of rugged manner and +disreputable appearance; it is strange too, that Aram always avoided +recurring to the acquaintance, though he confessed it." With this he +broke into a trot, and the Corporal into an oath. + +They arrived by noon, at the little town specified by Sir Peter, and in +their way to the inn (for Walter resolved to rest there), passed by the +saddler's house. It so chanced that Master Holwell was an adept in his +craft, and that a newly-invented hunting-saddle at the window caught +Walter's notice. The artful saddler persuaded the young traveller to +dismount and look at "the most convenientest and handsomest saddle what +ever was seed;" and the Corporal having lost no time in getting rid of +his encumbrance, Walter dismissed him to the inn with the horses, and +after purchasing the saddle, in exchange for his own, he sauntered into +the shop to look at a new snaffle. A gentleman's servant was in the shop +at the time, bargaining for a riding whip; and the shopboy, among others, +shewed him a large old-fashioned one, with a tarnished silver handle. +Grooms have no taste for antiquity, and in spite of the silverhandle, the +servant pushed it aside with some contempt. Some jest he uttered at the +time, chanced to attract Walter's notice to the whip; he took it up +carelessly, and perceived with great surprise that it bore his own crest, +a bittern, on the handle. He examined it now with attention, and +underneath the crest were the letters G. L., his father's initials. + +"How long have you had this whip?" said he to the saddler, concealing the +emotion, which this token of his lost parent naturally excited. + +"Oh, a nation long time, Sir," replied Mr. Holwell; "it is a queer old +thing, but really is not amiss, if the silver was scrubbed up a bit, and +a new lash put on; you may have it a bargain, Sir, if so be you have +taken a fancy to it." + +"Can you at all recollect how you came by it," said Walter, earnestly; +"the fact is that I see by the crest and initials, that it belonged to a +person whom I have some interest in discovering." + +"Why let me see," said the saddler, scratching the tip of his right ear, +"'tis so long ago sin I had it, I quite forgets how I came by it." + +"Oh, is it that whip, John?" said the wife, who had been attracted from +the back parlour by the sight of the handsome young stranger. "Don't you +remember, it's a many year ago, a gentleman who passed a day with Squire +Courtland, when he first come to settle here, called and left the whip to +have a new thong put to it. But I fancies he forgot it, Sir, (turning to +Walter,) for he never called for it again; and the Squire's people said +as how he was a gone into Yorkshire; so there the whip's been ever sin. I +remembers it, Sir, 'cause I kept it in the little parlour nearly a year, +to be in the way like." + +"Ah! I thinks I do remember it now," said Master Holwell. "I should think +it's a matter of twelve yearn ago. I suppose I may sell it without fear +of the gentleman's claiming it again." + +"Not more than twelve years!" said Walter, anxiously, for it was some +seventeen years since his father had been last heard of by his family. + +"Why it may be thirteen, Sir, or so, more or less, I can't say exactly." + +"More likely fourteen!" said the Dame, "it can't be much more, Sir, we +have only been a married fifteen year come next Christmas! But my old man +here, is ten years older nor I." + +"And the gentleman, you say, was at Mr. Courtland's." + +"Yes, Sir, that I'm sure of," replied the intelligent Mrs. Holwell; "they +said he had come lately from Ingee." + +Walter now despairing of hearing more, purchased the whip; and blessing +the worldly wisdom of Sir Peter Hales, that had thus thrown him on a +clue, which, however faint and distant, he resolved to follow up, he +inquired the way to Squire Courtland's, and proceeded thither at once. + + + + + CHAPTER VII. + + WALTER VISITS ANOTHER OF HIS UNCLE'S FRIENDS.--MR. COURTLAND'S + STRANGE COMPLAINT.--WALTER LEARNS NEWS OF HIS FATHER, WHICH + SURPRISES HIM.--THE CHANGE IN HIS DESTINATION. + + God's my life, did you ever hear the like, what a strange man is + this! +What you have possessed me withall, I'll discharge it amply. +--Ben Jonson's Every Man in his Humour. + +Mr. Courtland's house was surrounded by a high wall, and stood at the +outskirts of the town. A little wooden door buried deep within the wall, +seemed the only entrance. At this Walter paused, and after twice applying +to the bell, a footman of a peculiarly grave and sanctimonious +appearance, opened the door. + +In reply to Walter's inquiries, he informed him that Mr. Courtland was +very unwell, and never saw "Company."--Walter, however, producing from +his pocket-book the introductory letter given him by his father, slipped +it into the servant's hand, accompanied by half a crown, and begged to be +announced as a gentleman on very particular business. + +"Well, Sir, you can step in," said the servant, giving way; "but my +master is very poorly, very poorly indeed." + +"Indeed, I am sorry to hear it: has he been long so?" + +"Going on for ten--years, sir!" replied the servant, with great gravity; +and opening the door of the house which stood within a few paces of the +wall, on a singularly flat and bare grass-plot, he showed him into a +room, and left him alone. + +The first thing that struck Walter in this apartment, was its remarkable +lightness. Though not large, it had no less than seven windows. Two sides +of the wall, seemed indeed all window! Nor were these admittants of the +celestial beam-shaded by any blind or curtain,-- + + "The gaudy, babbling, and remorseless day" + +made itself thoroughly at home in this airy chamber. Nevertheless, though +so light, it seemed to Walter any thing but cheerful. The sun had +blistered and discoloured the painting of the wainscot, originally of a +pale sea-green; there was little furniture in the apartment; one table in +the centre, some half a dozen chairs, and a very small Turkey-carpet, +which did not cover one tenth part of the clean, cold, smooth, oak +boards, constituted all the goods and chattels visible in the room. But +what particularly added effect to the bareness of all within, was the +singular and laborious bareness of all without. From each of these seven +windows, nothing but a forlorn green flat of some extent was to be seen; +there was not a tree, or a shrub, or a flower in the whole expanse, +although by several stumps of trees near the house, Walter perceived that +the place had not always been so destitute of vegetable life. + +While he was yet looking upon this singular baldness of scene, the +servant re-entered with his master's compliments, and a message that he +should be happy to see any relation of Mr. Lester. + +Walter accordingly followed the footman into an apartment possessing +exactly the same peculiarities as the former one; viz. a most +disproportionate plurality of windows, a commodious scantiness of +furniture, and a prospect without, that seemed as if the house had been +built on the middle of Salisbury plain. + +Mr. Courtland, himself a stout man, and still preserving the rosy hues +and comely features, though certainly not the same hilarious expression, +which Lester had attributed to him, sat in a large chair, close by the +centre window, which was open. He rose and shook Walter by the hand with +great cordiality. + +"Sir, I am delighted to see you! How is your worthy uncle? I only wish he +were with you--you dine with me of course. Thomas, tell the cook to add a +tongue and chicken to the roast beef--no,--young gentleman, I will have +no excuse; sit down, sit down; pray come near the window; do you not find +it dreadfully close? not a breath of air? This house is so choked up; +don't you find it so, eh? Ah, I see, you can scarcely gasp." + +"My dear Sir, you are mistaken; I am rather cold, on the contrary: nor +did I ever in my life see a more airy house than yours." + +"I try to make it so, Sir, but I can't succeed; if you had seen what it +was, when I first bought it! a garden here, Sir; a copse there; a +wilderness, God wot! at the back: and a row of chesnut trees in the +front! You may conceive the consequence, Sir; I had not been long here, +not two years, before my health was gone, Sir, gone--the d--d vegetable +life sucked it out of me. The trees kept away all the air--I was nearly +suffocated, without, at first, guessing the cause. But at length, though +not till I had been withering away for five years, I discovered the +origin of my malady. I went to work, Sir; I plucked up the cursed garden, +I cut down the infernal chesnuts, I made a bowling green of the +diabolical wilderness, but I fear it is too late. I am dying by inches,-- +have been dying ever since. The malaria has effectually tainted my +constitution." + +Here Mr. Courtland heaved a deep sigh, and shook his head with a most +gloomy expression of countenance. + +"Indeed, Sir," said Walter, "I should not, to look at you, imagine that +you suffered under any complaint. You seem still the same picture of +health, that my uncle describes you to have been when you knew him so +many years ago." + +"Yes, Sir, yes; the confounded malaria fixed the colour to my cheeks; the +blood is stagnant, Sir. Would to God I could see myself a shade paler!-- +the blood does not flow; I am like a pool in a citizen's garden, with a +willow at each corner;--but a truce to my complaints. You see, Sir, I am +no hypochondriac, as my fool of a doctor wants to persuade me: a +hypochondriac shudders at every breath of air, trembles when a door is +open, and looks upon a window as the entrance of death. But I, Sir, never +can have enough air; thorough draught or east wind, it is all the same to +me, so that I do but breathe. Is that like hypochondria?--pshaw! But tell +me, young gentleman, about your uncle; is he quite well,--stout,-- +hearty,--does he breathe easily,--no oppression?" + +"Sir, he enjoys exceedingly good health: he did please himself with the +hope that I should give him good tidings of yourself, and another of his +old friends whom I accidentally saw yesterday,--Sir Peter Hales." + +"Hales, Peter Hales!--ah! a clever little fellow that: how delighted +Lester's good heart will be to hear that little Peter is so improved;--no +longer a dissolute, harum-scarum fellow, throwing away his money, and +always in debt. No, no; a respectable steady character, an excellent +manager, an active member of Parliament, domestic in private life,--Oh! a +very worthy man, Sir, a very worthy man!" + +"He seems altered indeed, Sir," said Walter, who was young enough in the +world to be surprised at this eulogy; "but is still agreeable and fond of +anecdote. He told me of his race with you for a thousand guineas." + +"Ah, don't talk of those days," said Mr. Courtland, shaking his head +pensively, "it makes me melancholy. Yes, Peter ought to recollect that, +for he has never paid me to this day; affected to treat it as a jest, and +swore he could have beat me if he would. But indeed it was my fault, Sir; +Peter had not then a thousand farthings in the world, and when he grew +rich, he became a steady character, and I did not like to remind him of +our former follies. Aha! can I offer you a pinch of snuff?--You look +feverish, Sir; surely this room must affect you, though you are too +polite to say so. Pray open that door, and then this window, and put your +chair right between the two. You have no notion how refreshing the +draught is." + +Walter politely declined the proffered ague, and thinking he had now made +sufficient progress in the acquaintance of this singular non- +hypochondriac to introduce the subject he had most at heart, hastened to +speak of his father. + +"I have chanced, Sir," said he, "very unexpectedly upon something that +once belonged to my poor father;" here he showed the whip. "I find from +the saddler of whom I bought it, that the owner was at your house some +twelve or fourteen years ago. I do not know whether you are aware that +our family have heard nothing respecting my father's fate for a +considerably longer time than that which has elapsed since you appear to +have seen him, if at least I may hope that he was your guest, and the +owner of this whip; and any news you can give me of him, any clue by +which he can possibly be traced, would be to us all--to me in particular- +-an inestimable obligation." + +"Your father!" said Mr. Courtland. "Oh,--ay, your uncle's brother. What +was his Christian name?--Henry?" + +"Geoffrey." + +"Ay, exactly; Geoffrey! What, not been heard of?--his family not know +where he is? A sad thing, Sir; but he was always a wild fellow; now here, +now there, like a flash of lightning. But it is true, it is true, he did +stay a day here, several years ago, when I first bought the place. I can +tell you all about it;--but you seem agitated,--do come nearer the +window:--there, that's right. Well, Sir, it is, as I said, a great many +years ago,--perhaps fourteen,--and I was speaking to the landlord of the +Greyhound about some hay he wished to sell, when a gentleman rode into +the yard full tear, as your father always did ride, and in getting out of +his way I recognised Geoffrey Lester. I did not know him well--far from +it; but I had seen him once or twice with your uncle, and though he was a +strange pickle, he sang a good song, and was deuced amusing. Well, Sir, I +accosted him, and, for the sake of your uncle, I asked him to dine with +me, and take a bed at my new house. Ah! I little thought what a dear +bargain it was to be. He accepted my invitation, for I fancy--no offence, +Sir,--there were few invitations that Mr. Geoffrey Lester ever refused to +accept. We dined tete-a-tete,--I am an old bachelor, Sir,--and very +entertaining he was, though his sentiments seemed to me broader than +ever. He was capital, however, about the tricks he had played his +creditors,--such manoeuvres,--such escapes! After dinner he asked me if I +ever corresponded with his brother. I told him no; that we were very good +friends, but never heard from each other; and he then said, 'Well, I +shall surprise him with a visit shortly; but in case you should +unexpectedly have any communication with him, don't mention having seen +me; for, to tell you the truth, I am just returned from India, where I +should have scraped up a little money, but that I spent it as fast as I +got it. However, you know that I was always proverbially the luckiest +fellow in the world--(and so, Sir, your father was!)--and while I was in +India, I saved an old Colonel's life at a tiger-hunt; he went home +shortly afterwards, and settled in Yorkshire; and the other day on my +return to England, to which my ill-health drove me, I learned that my old +Colonel was really dead, and had left me a handsome legacy, with his +house in Yorkshire. I am now going down to Yorkshire to convert the +chattels into gold--to receive my money, and I shall then seek out my +good brother, my household gods, and, perhaps, though it's not likely, +settle into a sober fellow for the rest of my life.' I don't tell you, +young gentleman, that those were your father's exact words,--one can't +remember verbatim so many years ago;--but it was to that effect. He left +me the next day, and I never heard any thing more of him: to say the +truth, he was looking wonderfully yellow, and fearfully reduced. And I +fancied at the time, he could not live long; he was prematurely old, and +decrepit in body, though gay in spirit; so that I had tacitly imagined in +never hearing of him more--that he had departed life. But, good Heavens! +did you never hear of this legacy?" + +"Never: not a word!" said Walter, who had listened to these particulars +in great surprise. "And to what part of Yorkshire did he say he was +going?" + +"That he did not mention." + +"Nor the Colonel's name?" + +"Not as I remember; he might, but I think not. But I am certain that the +county was Yorkshire, and the gentleman, whatever was his name, was a +Colonel. Stay! I recollect one more particular, which it is lucky I do +remember. Your father in giving me, as I said before, in his own humorous +strain, the history of his adventures, his hair-breadth escapes from his +duns, the various disguises, and the numerous aliases he had assumed, +mentioned that the name he had borne in India, and by which, he assured +me, he had made quite a good character--was Clarke: he also said, by the +way, that he still kept to that name, and was very merry on the +advantages of having so common an one. 'By which,' he said wittily, 'he +could father all his own sins on some other Mr. Clarke, at the same time +that he could seize and appropriate all the merits of all his other +namesakes.' Ah, no offence; but he was a sad dog, that father of yours! +So you see that, in all probability, if he ever reached Yorkshire, it was +under the name of Clarke that he claimed and received his legacy." + +"You have told me more," said Walter joyfully, "than we have heard since +his disappearance, and I shall turn my horses' heads northward to-morrow, +by break of day. But you say, 'if he ever reached Yorkshire,'--What +should prevent him?" + +"His health!" said the non-hypochondriac, "I should not be greatly +surprised if--if--In short you had better look at the grave-stones by the +way, for the name of Clarke." + +"Perhaps you can give me the dates, Sir," said Walter, somewhat cast down +from his elation. + +"Ay! I'll see, I'll see, after dinner; the commonness of the name has its +disadvantages now. Poor Geoffrey!--I dare say there are fifty tombs, to +the memory of fifty Clarkes, between this and York. But come, Sir, +there's the dinner-bell." + +Whatever might have been the maladies entailed upon the portly frame of +Mr. Courtland by the vegetable life of the departed trees, a want of +appetite was not among the number. Whenever a man is not abstinent from +rule, or from early habit, as in the case of Aram, Solitude makes its +votaries particularly fond of their dinner. They have no other event +wherewith to mark their day--they think over it, they anticipate it, +they nourish its soft idea with their imagination; if they do look +forward to any thing else more than dinner, it is--supper! + +Mr. Courtland deliberately pinned the napkin to his waistcoat, ordered +all the windows to be thrown open, and set to work like the good Canon in +Gil Blas. He still retained enough of his former self, to preserve an +excellent cook; so far at least as the excellence of a she-artist goes; +and though most of his viands were of the plainest, who does not know +what skill it requires to produce an unexceptionable roast, or a +blameless boil? Talk of good professed cooks, indeed! they are plentiful +as blackberries: it is the good, plain cook, who is the rarity! + +Half a tureen of strong soup; three pounds, at least, of stewed carp; all +the under part of a sirloin of beef; three quarters of a tongue; the +moiety of a chicken; six pancakes and a tartlet, having severally +disappeared down the jaws of the invalid, + + "Et cuncta terrarum subacta + Praeter atrocem animum Catonis," + + [And everything of earth subdued, + except the resolute mind of Cato.] + +he still called for two deviled biscuits and an anchovy! + +When these were gone, he had the wine set on a little table by the +window, and declared that the air seemed closer than ever. Walter was no +longer surprised at the singular nature of the nonhypochondriac's +complaint. + +Walter declined the bed that Mr. Courtland offered him--though his host +kindly assured him that it had no curtains, and that there was not a +shutter to the house--upon the plea of starting the next morning at +daybreak, and his consequent unwillingness to disturb the regular +establishment of the invalid: and Courtland, who was still an excellent, +hospitable, friendly man, suffered his friend's nephew to depart with +regret. He supplied him, however, by a reference to an old note-book, +with the date of the year, and even month, in which he had been favoured +by a visit from Mr. Clarke, who, it seemed, had also changed his +Christian name from Geoffrey, to one beginning with D--; but whether it +was David or Daniel the host remembered not. In parting with Walter, +Courtland shook his head, and observed:--"Entre nous, Sir, I fear this +may be a wildgoose chase. Your father was too facetious to confine +himself to fact--excuse me, Sir--and perhaps the Colonel and the legacy +were merely inventions--pour passer le temps--there was only one reason +indeed, that made me fully believe the story." + +"What was that, Sir?" asked Walter, blushing deeply, at the universality +of that estimation his father had obtained. + +"Excuse me, my young friend." + +"Nay, Sir, let me press you." + +"Why, then, Mr. Geoffrey Lester did not ask me to lend him any money." + +The next morning, instead of repairing to the gaieties of the metropolis, +Walter had, upon this slight and dubious clue, altered his journey +northward, and with an unquiet yet sanguine spirit, the adventurous son +commenced his search after the fate of a father evidently so unworthy of +the anxiety he had excited. + + + + + CHAPTER VIII. + + WALTER'S MEDITATIONS.--THE CORPORAL'S GRIEF AND ANGER.--THE + CORPORAL PERSONALLY DESCRIBED.--AN EXPLANATION WITH HIS + MASTER.--THE CORPORAL OPENS HIMSELF TO THE YOUNG TRAVELLER.-- + HIS OPINIONS ON LOVE;--ON THE WORLD;--ON THE PLEASURE AND + RESPECTABILITY OF CHEATING;--ON LADIES--AND A PARTICULAR CLASS + OF LADIES;--ON AUTHORS;--ON THE VALUE OF WORDS;--ON FIGHTING; + --WITH SUNDRY OTHER MATTERS OF EQUAL DELECTATION AND + IMPROVEMENT.--AN UNEXPECTED EVENT. + + Quale per incertam Lunam sub luce maligna + Est iter. + --Virgil. + + [Even as a journey by the upropitious light + of the uncertain moon.] + +The road prescribed to our travellers by the change in their destination +led them back over a considerable portion of the ground they had already +traversed, and since the Corporal took care that they should remain some +hours in the place where they dined, night fell upon them as they found +themselves in the midst of the same long and dreary stage in which they +had encountered Sir Peter Hales and the two suspected highwaymen. + +Walter's mind was full of the project on which he was bent. The reader +can fully comprehend how vivid must have been his emotions at thus +chancing on what might prove a clue to the mystery that hung over his +father's fate; and sanguinely did he now indulge those intense +meditations with which the imaginative minds of the young always brood +over every more favourite idea, until they exalt the hope into a passion. +Every thing connected with this strange and roving parent, had possessed +for the breast of his son, not only an anxious, but so to speak, +indulgent interest. The judgment of a young man is always inclined to +sympathize with the wilder and more enterprising order of spirits; and +Walter had been at no loss for secret excuses wherewith to defend the +irregular life and reckless habits of his parent. Amidst all his father's +evident and utter want of principle, Walter clung with a natural and +self-deceptive partiality to the few traits of courage or generosity +which relieved, if they did not redeem, his character; traits which, with +a character of that stamp, are so often, though always so unprofitably +blended, and which generally cease with the commencement of age. He now +felt elated by the conviction, as he had always been inspired by the +hope, that it was to be his lot to discover one whom he still believed +living, and whom he trusted to find amended. The same intimate persuasion +of the "good luck" of Geoffrey Lester, which all who had known him +appeared to entertain, was felt even in a more credulous and earnest +degree by his son. Walter gave way now, indeed, to a variety of +conjectures as to the motives which could have induced his father to +persist in the concealment of his fate after his return to England; but +such of those conjectures as, if the more rational, were also the more +despondent, he speedily and resolutely dismissed. Sometimes he thought +that his father, on learning the death of the wife he had abandoned, +might have been possessed with a remorse which rendered him unwilling to +disclose himself to the rest of his family, and a feeling that the main +tie of home was broken; sometimes he thought that the wanderer had been +disappointed in his expected legacy, and dreading the attacks of his +creditors, or unwilling to throw himself once more on the generosity of +his brother, had again suddenly quitted England and entered on some +enterprise or occupation abroad. It was also possible, to one so reckless +and changeful, that even, after receiving the legacy, a proposition from +some wild comrade might have hurried him away on any continental project +on the mere impulse of the moment, for the impulse of the moment had +always been the guide of his life; and once abroad he might have returned +to India, and in new connections forgotten the old ties at home. Letters +from abroad too, miscarry; and it was not improbable that the wanderer +might have written repeatedly, and receiving no answer to his +communications, imagined that the dissoluteness of his life had deprived +him of the affections of his family, and, deserving so well to have the +proffer of renewed intercourse rejected, believed that it actually was +so. These, and a hundred similar conjectures, found favour in the eyes of +the young traveller; but the chances of a fatal accident, or sudden +death, he pertinaciously refused at present to include in the number of +probabilities. Had his father been seized with a mortal illness on the +road, was it not likely that he would, in the remorse occasioned in the +hardiest by approaching death, have written to his brother, and +recommending his child to his care, have apprised him of the addition to +his fortune? Walter then did not meditate embarrassing his present +journey by those researches among the dead, which the worthy Courtland +had so considerately recommended to his prudence: should his expedition, +contrary to his hopes, prove wholly unsuccessful, it might then be well +to retrace his steps and adopt the suggestion. But what man, at the age +of twenty-one, ever took much precaution on the darker side of a question +on which his heart was interested? + +With what pleasure, escaping from conjecture to a more ultimate +conclusion--did he, in recalling those words, in which his father had +more than hinted to Courtland of his future amendment, contemplate +recovering a parent made wise by years and sober by misfortunes, and +restoring him to a hearth of tranquil virtues and peaceful enjoyments! He +imaged to himself a scene of that domestic happiness, which is so perfect +in our dreams, because in our dreams monotony is always excluded from the +picture. And, in this creation of Fancy, the form of Ellinor--his bright- +eyed and gentle cousin, was not the least conspicuous. Since his +altercation with Madeline, the love he had once thought so ineffaceable, +had faded into a dim and sullen hue; and, in proportion as the image of +Madeline grew indistinct, that of her sister became more brilliant. +Often, now, as he rode slowly onward, in the quiet of the deepening +night, and the mellow stars softening all on which they shone, he pressed +the little token of Ellinor's affection to his heart, and wondered that +it was only within the last few days he had discovered that her eyes were +more beautiful than Madeline's, and her smile more touching. Meanwhile +the redoubted Corporal, who was by no means pleased with the change in +his master's plans, lingered behind, whistling the most melancholy tune +in his collection. No young lady, anticipative of balls or coronets, had +ever felt more complacent satisfaction in a journey to London than that +which had cheered the athletic breast of the veteran on finding himself, +at last, within one day's gentle march of the metropolis. And no young +lady, suddenly summoned back in the first flush of her debut, by an +unseasonable fit of gout or economy in papa, ever felt more irreparably +aggrieved than now did the dejected Corporal. His master had not yet even +acquainted him with the cause of the countermarch; and, in his own heart, +he believed it nothing but the wanton levity and unpardonable fickleness +"common to all them ere boys afore they have seen the world." He +certainly considered himself a singularly ill-used and injured man, and +drawing himself up to his full height, as if it were a matter with which +Heaven should be acquainted at the earliest possible opportunity, he +indulged, as we before said, in the melancholy consolation of a whistled +death-dirge, occasionally interrupted by a long-drawn interlude half +sigh, half snuffle of his favourite augh--baugh. + +And here, we remember, that we have not as yet given to our reader a +fitting portrait of the Corporal on horseback. Perhaps no better +opportunity than the present may occur; and perhaps, also, Corporal +Bunting, as well as Melrose Abbey, may seem a yet more interesting +picture when viewed by the pale moonlight. + +The Corporal then wore on his head a small cocked hat, which had formerly +belonged to the Colonel of the Forty-second--the prints of my uncle Toby +may serve to suggest its shape;--it had once boasted a feather--that was +gone; but the gold lace, though tarnished, and the cockade, though +battered, still remained. From under this shade the profile of the +Corporal assumed a particular aspect of heroism: though a good-looking +man on the main, it was his air, height, and complexion, which made him +so; and a side view, unlike Lucian's one-eyed prince, was not the most +favourable point in which his features could be regarded. His eyes, which +were small and shrewd, were half hid by a pair of thick shaggy brows, +which, while he whistled, he moved to and fro, as a horse moves his ears +when he gives warning that he intends to shy; his nose was straight--so +far so good--but then it did not go far enough; for though it seemed no +despicable proboscis in front, somehow or another it appeared exceedingly +short in profile; to make up for this, the upper lip was of a length the +more striking from being exceedingly straight;--it had learned to hold +itself upright, and make the most of its length as well as its master! +his under lip, alone protruded in the act of whistling, served yet more +markedly to throw the nose into the background; and, as for the chin-- +talk of the upper lip being long indeed!--the chin would have made two of +it; such a chin! so long, so broad, so massive, had it been put on a dish +might have passed, without discredit, for a round of beef! it looked yet +larger than it was from the exceeding tightness of the stiff black- +leather stock below, which forced forth all the flesh it encountered into +another chin,--a remove to the round. The hat, being somewhat too small +for the Corporal, and being cocked knowingly in front, left the hinder +half of the head exposed. And the hair, carried into a club according to +the fashion, lay thick, and of a grizzled black, on the brawny shoulders +below. The veteran was dressed in a blue coat, originally a frock; but +the skirts, having once, to the imminent peril of the place they guarded, +caught fire, as the Corporal stood basking himself at Peter Dealtry's, +had been so far amputated, as to leave only the stump of a tail, which +just covered, and no more, that part which neither Art in bipeds nor +Nature in quadrupeds loves to leave wholly exposed. And that part, ah, +how ample! had Liston seen it, he would have hid for ever his diminished- +-opposite to head!--No wonder the Corporal had been so annoyed by the +parcel of the previous day, a coat so short, and a--; but no matter, pass +we to the rest! It was not only in its skirts that this wicked coat was +deficient; the Corporal, who had within the last few years thriven +lustily in the inactive serenity of Grassdale, had outgrown it +prodigiously across the chest and girth; nevertheless he managed to +button it up. And thus the muscular proportions of the wearer bursting +forth in all quarters, gave him the ludicrous appearance of a gigantic +schoolboy. His wrists, and large sinewy hands, both employed at the +bridle of his hard-mouthed charger, were markedly visible; for it was the +Corporal's custom whenever he came into an obscure part of the road, +carefully to take off, and prudently to pocket, a pair of scrupulously +clean white leather gloves which smartened up his appearance prodigiously +in passing through the towns in their route. His breeches were of yellow +buckskin, and ineffably tight; his stockings were of grey worsted, and a +pair of laced boots, that reached the ascent of a very mountainous calf, +but declined any farther progress, completed his attire. + +Fancy then this figure, seated with laborious and unswerving +perpendicularity on a demi-pique saddle, ornamented with a huge pair of +well-stuffed saddle-bags, and holsters revealing the stocks of a brace of +immense pistols, the horse with its obstinate mouth thrust out, and the +bridle drawn as tight as a bowstring! its ears laid sullenly down, as if, +like the Corporal, it complained of going to Yorkshire, and its long +thick tail, not set up in a comely and well-educated arch, but hanging +sheepishly down, as if resolved that its buttocks should at least be +better covered than its master's! + +And now, reader, it is not our fault if you cannot form some conception +of the physical perfections of the Corporal and his steed. + +The reverie of the contemplative Bunting was interrupted by the voice of +his master calling upon him to approach. + +"Well, well!" muttered he, "the younker can't expect one as close at his +heels as if we were trotting into Lunnon, which we might be at this time, +sure enough, if he had not been so damned flighty,--augh!" + +"Bunting, I say, do you hear?" + +"Yes, your honour, yes; this ere horse is so 'nation sluggish." + +"Sluggish! why I thought he was too much the reverse, Bunting? I thought +he was one rather requiring the bridle than the spur." + +"Augh! your honour, he's slow when he should not, and fast when he should +not; changes his mind from pure whim, or pure spite; new to the world, +your honour, that's all; a different thing if properly broke. There be a +many like him!" + +"You mean to be personal, Mr. Bunting," said Walter, laughing at the +evident ill-humour of his attendant. + +"Augh! indeed and no!--I daren't--a poor man like me--go for to presume +to be parsonal,--unless I get hold of a poorer!" + +"Why, Bunting, you do not mean to say that you would be so ungenerous as +to affront a man because he was poorer than you?--fie!" + +"Whaugh, your honour! and is not that the very reason why I'd affront +him? surely it is not my betters I should affront; that would be ill +bred, your honour,--quite want of discipline." + +"But we owe it to our great Commander," said Walter, "to love all men." + +"Augh! Sir, that's very good maxim,--none better--but shows ignorance of +the world, Sir--great!" + +"Bunting, your way of thinking is quite disgraceful. Do you know, Sir, +that it is the Bible you were speaking of?" + +"Augh, Sir! but the Bible was addressed to them Jew creturs! How somever, +it's an excellent book for the poor; keeps 'em in order, favours +discipline,--none more so." "Hold your tongue. I called you, Bunting, +because I think I heard you say you had once been at York. Do you know +what towns we shall pass on our road thither?" + +"Not I, your honour; it's a mighty long way.--What would the Squire +think?--just at Lunnon, too. Could have learnt the whole road, Sir, inns +all, if you had but gone on to Lunnon first. Howsomever, young gentlemen +will be hasty,--no confidence in those older, and who are experienced in +the world. I knows what I knows," and the Corporal recommenced his +whistle. + +"Why, Bunting, you seem quite discontented at my change of journey. Are +you tired of riding, or were you very eager to get to town?" + +"Augh! Sir; I was only thinking of what best for your honour,--I!--'tis +not for me to like or dislike. Howsomever, the horses, poor creturs, must +want rest for some days. Them dumb animals can't go on for ever, bumpety, +bumpety, as your honour and I do.--Whaugh!" "It is very true, Bunting, +and I have had some thoughts of sending you home again with the horses, +and travelling post." + +"Eh!" grunted the Corporal, opening his eyes; "hopes your honour ben't +serious." + +"Why if you continue to look so serious, I must be serious too; you +understand, Bunting?" + +"Augh--and that's all, your honour," cried the Corporal, brightening up, +"shall look merry enough to-morrow, when one's in, as it were, like, to +the change of road. But you see, Sir, it took me by surprise. Said I to +myself, says I, it is an odd thing for you, Jacob Bunting, on the faith +of a man, it is! to go tramp here, tramp there, without knowing why or +wherefore, as if you was still a private in the Forty-second, 'stead of a +retired Corporal. You see, your honour, my pride was a hurt; but it's all +over now;--only spites those beneath me,--I knows the world at my time o' +life." + +"Well, Bunting, when you learn the reason of my change of plan, you'll be +perfectly satisfied that I do quite right. In a word, you know that my +father has been long missing; I have found a clue by which I yet hope to +trace him. This is the reason of my journey to Yorkshire." + +"Augh!" said the Corporal, "and a very good reason: you're a most +excellent son, Sir;--and Lunnon so nigh!" + +"The thought of London seems to have bewitched you; did you expect to +find the streets of gold since you were there last?" + +"A--well Sir; I hears they be greatly improved." + +"Pshaw! you talk of knowing the world, Bunting, and yet you pant to enter +it with all the inexperience of a boy. Why even I could set you an +example." + +"'Tis 'cause I knows the world," said the Corporal, exceedingly nettled, +"that I wants to get back to it. I have heard of some spoonies as never +kist a girl, but never heard of any one who had kist a girl once, that +did not long to be at it again." + +"And I suppose, Mr. Profligate, it is that longing which makes you so hot +for London?" + +"There have been worse longings nor that," quoth the Corporal gravely. + +"Perhaps you meditate marrying one of the London belles; an heiress--eh?" + +"Can't but say," said the Corporal very solemnly, "but that might be +'ticed to marry a fortin, if so be she was young, pretty, good-tempered, +and fell desperately in love with me,--best quality of all." + +"You're a modest fellow." + +"Why, the longer a man lives, the more knows his value; would not sell +myself a bargain now, whatever might at twenty-one!" + +"At that rate you would be beyond all price at seventy," said Walter: +"but now tell me, Bunting, were you ever in love,--really and honestly in +love?" + +"Indeed, your honour," said the Corporal, "I have been over head and +ears; but that was afore I learnt to swim. Love's very like bathing. At +first we go souse to the bottom, but if we're not drowned, then we gather +pluck, grow calm, strike out gently, and make a deal pleasanter thing of +it afore we've done. I'll tell you, Sir, what I thinks of love: 'twixt +you and me, Sir, 'tis not that great thing in life, boys and girls want +to make it out to be; if 'twere one's dinner, that would be summut, for +one can't do without that; but lauk, Sir, Love's all in the fancy. One +does not eat it, nor drink it; and as for the rest,--why it's bother!" + +"Bunting, you're a beast," said Walter in a rage, for though the Corporal +had come off with a slight rebuke for his sneer at religion, we grieve to +say that an attack on the sacredness of love seemed a crime beyond all +toleration to the theologian of twenty-one. + +The Corporal bowed, and thrust his tongue in his cheek. + +There was a pause of some moments. + +"And what," said Walter, for his spirits were raised, and he liked +recurring to the quaint shrewdness of the Corporal, "and what, after all, +is the great charm of the world, that you so much wish to return to it?" + +"Augh!" replied the Corporal, "'tis a pleasant thing to look about un +with all one's eyes open; rogue here, rogue there--keeps one alive;--life +in Lunnon, life in a village--all the difference 'twixt healthy walk, and +a doze in arm-chair; by the faith of a man, 'tis!" + +"What! it is pleasant to have rascals about one?" + +"Surely yes," returned the Corporal drily; "what so delightful like as to +feel one's cliverness and 'bility all set an end--bristling up like a +porkypine; nothing makes a man tread so light, feel so proud, breathe so +briskly, as the knowledge that he's all his wits about him, that he's a +match for any one, that the Divil himself could not take him in. Augh! +that's what I calls the use of an immortal soul--bother!" + +Walter laughed. + +"And to feel one is likely to be cheated is the pleasantest way of +passing one's time in town, Bunting, eh?" + +"Augh! and in cheating too!" answered the Corporal; "'cause you sees, +Sir, there be two ways o' living; one to cheat,--one to be cheated. 'Tis +pleasant enough to be cheated for a little while, as the younkers are, +and as you'll be, your honour; but that's a pleasure don't last long-- +t'other lasts all your life; dare say your honour's often heard rich +gentlemen say to their sons, 'you ought, for your own happiness' sake, +like, my lad, to have summut to do--ought to have some profession, be you +niver so rich,'--very true, your honour, and what does that mean? why it +means that 'stead of being idle and cheated, the boy ought to be busy and +cheat--augh!" + +"Must a man who follows a profession, necessarily cheat, then?" + +"Baugh! can your honour ask that? Does not the Lawyer cheat? and the +Doctor cheat? and the Parson cheat, more than any? and that's the reason +they all takes so much int'rest in their profession--bother!" + +"But the soldier? you say nothing of him." + +"Why, the soldier," said the Corporal, with dignity, "the private +soldier, poor fellow, is only cheated; but when he comes for to get for +to be as high as a corp'ral, or a sargent, he comes for to get to bully +others, and to cheat. Augh! then 'tis not for the privates to cheat,-- +that would be 'sumpton indeed, save us!" + +"The General, then, cheats more than any, I suppose?" + +"'Course, your honour; he talks to the world 'bout honour an' glory, and +love of his Country, and sich like--augh! that's proper cheating!" + +"You're a bitter fellow, Mr. Bunting: and pray, what do you think of the +Ladies--'are they as bad as the men?'" + +"Ladies--augh! when they're married--yes! but of all them ere creturs, I +respects the kept Ladies, the most--on the faith of a man, I do! Gad! how +well they knows the world--one quite invies the she rogues; they beats +the wives hollow! Augh! and your honour should see how they fawns and +flatters, and butters up a man, and makes him think they loves him like +winkey, all the time they ruins him. They kisses money out of the miser, +and sits in their satins, while the wife, 'drot her, sulks in a gingham. +Oh, they be cliver creturs, and they'll do what they likes with old Nick, +when they gets there, for 'tis the old gentlemen they cozens the best; +and then," continued the Corporal, waxing more and more loquacious, for +his appetite in talking grew with that it fed on,--"then there be another +set o' queer folks you'll see in Lunnon, Sir, that is, if you falls in +with 'em,--hang all together, quite in a clink. I seed lots on 'em when +lived with the Colonel--Colonel Dysart, you knows--augh?" + +"And what are they?" + +"Rum ones, your honour; what they calls Authors." + +"Authors! what the deuce had you or the Colonel to do with Authors?" + +"Augh! then, the Colonel was a very fine gentleman, what the larned calls +a my-seen-ass, wrote little songs himself, 'crossticks, you knows, your +honour: once he made a play--'cause why, he lived with an actress!" + +"A very good reason, indeed, for emulating Shakespear; and did the play +succeed?" + +"Fancy it did, your honour; for the Colonel was a dab with the scissors." + +"Scissors! the pen, you mean?" + +"No! that's what the dirty Authors make plays with; a Lord and a Colonel, +my-seen-asses, always takes the scissors." + +"How?" + +"Why the Colonel's Lady--had lots of plays--and she marked a scene here-- +a jest there--a line in one place--a sentiment in t' other--and the +Colonel sate by with a great paper book--cut 'em out, pasted them in +book. Augh! but the Colonel pleased the town mightily." + +"Well, so he saw a great many authors; and did not they please you?" + +"Why they be so damned quarrelsome," said the Corporal, "wringle, +wrangle, wrongle, snap, growl, scratch; that's not what a man of the +world does; man of the world niver quarrels; then, too, these creturs +always fancy you forgets that their father was a clargyman; they always +thinks more of their family, like, than their writings; and if they does +not get money when they wants it, they bristles up and cries, 'not +treated like a gentleman, by God!' Yet, after all, they've a deal of +kindness in 'em, if you knows how to manage 'em--augh! but, cat-kindness, +paw today, claw to-morrow. And then they always marries young, the poor +things, and have a power of children, and live on the fame and forten +they are to get one of these days; for, my eye! they be the most +sanguinest folks alive!" + +"Why, Bunting, what an observer you have been! who could ever have +imagined that you had made yourself master of so many varieties in men!" + +"Augh! your honour, I had nothing to do when I was the Colonel's valley, +but to take notes to ladies and make use of my eyes. Always a 'flective +man." + +"It is odd that, with all your abilities, you did not provide better for +yourself." + +"'Twas not my fault," said the Corporal, quickly; "but somehow, do what +will--'tis not always the cliverest as foresees the best. But I be young +yet, your honour!" + +Walter stared at the Corporal and laughed outright: the Corporal was +exceedingly piqued. + +"Augh! mayhap you thinks, Sir, that 'cause not so young as you, not young +at all; but, what's forty, or fifty, or fifty-five, in public life? never +hear much of men afore then. 'Tis the autumn that reaps, spring sows, +augh!--bother!" + +"Very true and very poetical. I see you did not live among authors for +nothing." + +"I knows summut of language, your honour," quoth the Corporal +pedantically. + +"It is evident." + +"For, to be a man of the world, Sir, must know all the ins and outs of +speechifying; 'tis words, Sir, that makes another man's mare go your +road. Augh! that must have been a cliver man as invented language; +wonders who 'twas--mayhap Moses, your honour?" + +"Never mind who it was," said Walter gravely; "use the gift discreetly." + +"Umph!" said the Corporal--"yes, your honour," renewed he after a pause. +"It be a marvel to think on how much a man does in the way of cheating, +as has the gift of the gab. Wants a Missis, talks her over--wants your +purse, talks you out on it--wants a place, talks himself into it.--What +makes the Parson? words!--the lawyer? words--the Parliament-man? words!-- +words can ruin a country, in the Big House--words save souls, in the +Pulpits--words make even them ere authors, poor creturs, in every man's +mouth.--Augh! Sir, take note of the words, and the things will take care +of themselves--bother!" + +"Your reflections amaze me, Bunting," said Walter smiling; "but the night +begins to close in; I trust we shall not meet with any misadventure." + +"'Tis an ugsome bit of road!" said the Corporal, looking round him. + +"The pistols?" + +"Primed and loaded, your honour." + +"After all, Bunting, a little skirmish would be no bad sport--eh?-- +especially to an old soldier like you." + +"Augh, baugh! 'tis no pleasant work, fighting, without pay, at least; +'tis not like love and eating, your honour, the better for being, what +they calls, 'gratis!'" + +"Yet I have heard you talk of the pleasure of fighting; not for pay, +Bunting, but for your King and Country!" + +"Augh! and that's when I wanted to cheat the poor creturs at Grassdale, +your honour; don't take the liberty to talk stuff to my master!" + +They continued thus to beguile the way, till Walter again sank into a +reverie, while the Corporal, who began more and more to dislike the +aspect of the ground they had entered on, still rode by his side. + +The road was heavy, and wound down the long hill which had stricken so +much dismay into the Corporal's stout heart on the previous day, when he +had beheld its commencement at the extremity of the town, where but for +him they had not dined. They were now little more than a mile from the +said town, the whole of the way was taken up by this hill, and the road, +very different from the smoothened declivities of the present day, seemed +to have been cut down the very steepest part of its centre; loose stones, +and deep ruts encreased the difficulty of the descent, and it was with a +slow pace and a guarded rein that both our travellers now continued their +journey. On the left side of the road was a thick and lofty hedge; to the +right, a wild, bare, savage heath, sloped downward, and just afforded a +glimpse of the spires and chimneys of the town, at which the Corporal was +already supping in idea! That incomparable personage was, however, +abruptly recalled to the present instant, by a most violent stumble on +the part of his hard-mouthed, Romannosed horse. The horse was all but +down, and the Corporal all but over. + +"Damn it," said the Corporal, slowly recovering his perpendicularity, +"and the way to Lunnon was as smooth as a bowling-green!" + +Ere this rueful exclamation was well out of the Corporal's mouth, a +bullet whizzed past him from the hedge; it went so close to his ear, that +but for that lucky stumble, Jacob Bunting had been as the grass of the +field, which flourisheth one moment and is cut down the next! + +Startled by the sound, the Corporal's horse made off full tear down the +hill, and carried him several paces beyond his master, ere he had power +to stop its career. But Walter reining up his better managed steed, +looked round for the enemy, nor looked in vain. + +Three men started from the hedge with a simultaneous shout. Walter fired, +but without effect; ere he could lay hand on the second pistol, his +bridle was seized, and a violent blow from a long double-handed bludgeon, +brought him to the ground. + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EUGENE ARAM, BOOK 2, BY LYTTON *** + +********* This file should be named 7610.txt or 7610.zip ********** + +This eBook was produced by David Widger + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. + +Most people start at our Web sites at: +https://gutenberg.org or +http://promo.net/pg + +These Web sites include award-winning information about Project +Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new +eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!). + + +Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement +can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is +also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the +indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an +announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter. + +http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or +ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03 + +Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90 + +Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, +as it appears in our Newsletters. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text +files per month: 1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+ +We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002 +If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total +will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks! +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users. + +Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated): + +eBooks Year Month + + 1 1971 July + 10 1991 January + 100 1994 January + 1000 1997 August + 1500 1998 October + 2000 1999 December + 2500 2000 December + 3000 2001 November + 4000 2001 October/November + 6000 2002 December* + 9000 2003 November* +10000 2004 January* + + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created +to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people +and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, +Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, +Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, +Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New +Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, +Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South +Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West +Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. + +We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones +that have responded. + +As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list +will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states. +Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state. + +In answer to various questions we have received on this: + +We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally +request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and +you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have, +just ask. + +While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are +not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting +donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to +donate. + +International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about +how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made +deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are +ways. + +Donations by check or money order may be sent to: + +Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +PMB 113 +1739 University Ave. +Oxford, MS 38655-4109 + +Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment +method other than by check or money order. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by +the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN +[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154. Donations are +tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law. As fund-raising +requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be +made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +You can get up to date donation information online at: + +https://www.gutenberg.org/donation.html + + +*** + +If you can't reach Project Gutenberg, +you can always email directly to: + +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> + +Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message. + +We would prefer to send you information by email. + + +**The Legal Small Print** + + +(Three Pages) + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks, +is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart +through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project"). +Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook +under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market +any commercial products without permission. + +To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may +receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims +all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation, +and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated +with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including +legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the +following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this eBook, +[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook, +or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + eBook or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word + processing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the eBook (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the + gross profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation" + the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were + legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent + periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to + let us know your plans and to work out the details. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of +public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed +in machine readable form. + +The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, +public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses. +Money should be paid to the: +"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or +software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: +hart@pobox.com + +[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only +when distributed free of all fees. Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by +Michael S. Hart. Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be +used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be +they hardware or software or any other related product without +express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* diff --git a/7610.zip b/7610.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0afdf5f --- /dev/null +++ b/7610.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..947b335 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #7610 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7610) |