A Day's Ride Part 10

"I sincerely trust," said I, in an accent of great deference and sympathy, "that the delay may not be the cause of grave inconvenience to you; and although a perfect stranger, if any a.s.sistance I can offer--"

"No, sir; there is really nothing I could ask from your kindness." It was in turning back to bid good-bye a second time to my mother--Here her agitation seemed to choke her, for she turned away and said no more.

"Shall I fetch a cab for you?" I asked. "Would you like to go back till the next train starts?"

"Oh, by no means, sir! We live three miles from Milford; and, besides, I could not bear--" Here again she broke down, but added, after a pause, "It is the first time I have been away from home!"

With a little gentle force I succeeded in inducing her to enter the refreshment-room of the station, but she would take nothing; and after some attempts to engage her in conversation to while away the dreary time, I perceived that it would be a more true politeness not to obtrude upon her sorrow; and so I lighted my cigar, and proceeded to walk up and down the long terrace of the station. Three trunks, or rather two and a hat-box, kept my knapsack company on the side of the tramway; and on these I read, inscribed in a large band, "Miss K. Herbert, per steamer 'Ardent,' Ostend." I started. Was it not in that direction my own steps were turned? Was not Blondel in Belgium, and was it not in search of him that I was bent? "Oh, Fate!" I cried, "what subtle device of thine is this? What wily artifice art thou now engaged in? Is this a snare, or is it an aid? Hast thou any secret purpose in this rencontre? for with thee there are no chances, no accidents in thy vicissitudes; all is prepared and fitted, like a piece of door carpentry." And then I fell into weaving a story for the young lady. She was an orphan. Her father, the curate of the little parish she lived in, had just died, leaving herself and her mother in direst distress. She was leaving home,--the happy home of her childhood (I saw it all before me,--cottage, and garden, and little lawn, with its one cow and two sheep, and the small green wicket beside the road), and she was leaving all these to become a governess to an upstart, mill-owning, vulgar family at Brussels. Poor thing! how my heart bled for her! What a life of misery lay before her,--what trials of temper and of pride! The odious children--I know they are odious--will torture her to the quick; and Mrs. Treddles, or whatever her detestable name is, will lead her a terrible life from jealousy; and she 'll have to bear everything, and cry over it in secret, remembering the once happy time in that honeysuckled porch, where poor papa used to read Wordsworth for them.

What a world of sorrow on every side; and how easily might it be made otherwise! What gigantic efforts are we forever making for something which we never live to enjoy I Striving to be freer, greater, better governed, and more lightly taxed, and all the while forgetting that the real secret is to be on better terms with each other,--more generous, more forgiving, less apt to take offence or bear malice. Of mere material goods, there is far more than we need. The table would accommodate more than double the guests, could we only agree to sit down in orderly fas.h.i.+on; but here we have one occupying three chairs, while another crouches on the floor, and some even prefer smas.h.i.+ng the furniture to letting some more humbly born take a place near them. I wish they would listen to me on this theme. I wish, instead of all this social science humbug and art-union balderdash, they would hearken to the voice of a plain man, saying, Are you not members of one family,--the individuals of one household? Is it not clear to you, if you extend the kindly affections you now reserve for the narrow circle wherein you live to the wider area of mankind, that, while diffusing countless blessings to others, you will yourself become better, more charitable, more kind-hearted, wider in reach of thought, more catholic in philanthropy? I can imagine such a world, and feel it to be a Paradise,--a world with no social distinctions, no inequalities of condition, and, consequently, no insolent pride of station, nor any degrading subserviency of demeanor, no rivalries, no jealousies,--love and benevolence everywhere. In such a sphere the calm equanimity of mind by which great things are accomplished, would in itself const.i.tute a perfect heaven. No impatience of temper, no pa.s.sing irritation--

"Where the------are you driving to, sir?" cried I, as a fellow with a bra.s.s-bound trunk in a hand-barrow came smash against my s.h.i.+n.

"Don't you see, sir, the train is just starting?" said he, hastening on; and I now perceived that such was the case, and that I had barely time to rush down to the pay-office and secure my ticket.

"What cla.s.s, sir?" cried the clerk.

"Which has she taken?" said I, forgetting all save the current of my own thoughts.

"First or second, sir?" repeated he, impatiently.

"Either, or both," replied I, in confusion; and he flung me back some change and a blue card, closing the little shutter with a bang that announced the end of all colloquy.

"Get in, sir!"

"Which carriage?"

"Get in, sir!"

"Second-cla.s.s? Here you are!" called out an official, as he thrust me almost rudely into a vile mob of travellers.

The bell rang out, and two snorts and a scream followed, then a heave and a jerk, and away we went As soon as I had time to look around me, I saw that my companions were all persons of an humble order of the middle cla.s.s,--the small shopkeepers and traders, probably, of the locality we were leaving. Their easy recognition of each other, and the natural way their conversation took up local matters, soon satisfied me of this fact, and reconciled me to fall back upon my own thoughts for occupation and amus.e.m.e.nt This was with me the usual prelude to a sleep, to which I was quietly composing myself soon after. The droppings of the conversation around me, however, prevented this; for the talk had taken a discussional tone, and the differences of opinion were numerous. The question debated was, Whether a certain Sir Samuel Somebody was a great rogue, or only unfortunate? The reasons for either opinion were well put and defended, showing that the company, like most others of that cla.s.s in life in England, had cultivated their faculties of judgment and investigation by the habit of attending trials or reading reports of them in newspapers.

After the discussion on his morality, came the question, Was he alive or dead?

"Sir Samuel never shot himself, sir," said a short pluffy man with an asthma. "I 've known him for years, and I can say he was not a man to do such an act."

"Well, sir, the Ostrich and the United Brethren offices are both of your opinion," said another; "they 'll not pay the policy on his life."

"The law only recognizes death on production of the body," sagely observed a man in shabby black, with a satin neckcloth, and whom I afterwards perceived was regarded as a legal authority.

"What's to be done, then, if a man be drowned at sea, or burned to a cinder in a lime-kiln?"

"Ay, or by what they call spontaneous combustion, that does n't leave a shred of you?" cried three objectors in turn.

"The law provides for these emergencies with its usual wisdom, gentlemen. Where death may not be actually proven it can be often inferred."

"But who says that Sir Samuel is dead?" broke in the asthmatic man, evidently impatient at the didactic tone of the attorney. "All we know of the matter is a letter of his own signing, that when these lines are read I shall be no more. Now, is that sufficient evidence of death to induce an insurance company to hand over some eight or ten thousand pounds to his family?"

"I believe you might say thirty thousand, sir," suggested a mild voice from the corner.

"Nothing of the kind," interposed another; "the really heavy policies on his life were held by an old c.u.mberland baronet, Sir Elkanah Crofton, who first established Whalley in the iron trade. I 've heard it from my father fifty times, when a child, that Sam Whalley entered Milford in a fustian jacket, with all his traps in a handkerchief."

At the mention of Sir Elkanah Crofton, my attention was quickly excited; this was the uncle of my friends at the Rosary, and I was at once curious to hear more of him.

"Fustian jacket or not, he had a good head on his shoulders," remarked one.

"And luck, sir; luck, which is better than any head," sighed the meek man, sorrowfully.

"I deny that, deny it totally," broke in he of the asthma. "If Sam Whalley hadn't been a man of first-rate order, he never could have made that concern what it was,--the first foundry in Wales."

"And what is it now, and where is he?" asked the attorney, triumphantly.

"At rest, I hope," murmured the sad man.

"Not a bit of it, sir," said the wheezing voice, in a tone of confidence; "take _my_ word for it, he 's alive and hearty, somewhere or other, ay, and we 'll hear of him one of these days: he 'll be smelting metals in Africa, or cutting a ca.n.a.l through the Isthmus of Heaven knows what, or prime minister of one of those rajahs in India. He's a clever dog, and he knows it too. I saw what he thought of himself the day old Sir Elkanah came down to Fairbridge."

"To be sure, you were there that morning," said the attorney; "tell us about that meeting."

"It's soon told," resumed the other. "When Sir Elkanah Crofton arrived at the house, we were all in the garden. Sir Samuel had taken me there to see some tulips, which he said were the finest in Europe, except some at the Hague. Maybe it was that the old baronet was vexed at seeing n.o.body come to meet him, or that something else had crossed him, but as he entered the garden I saw he was sorely out of temper.

"'How d'ye do, Sir Elkanah?' said Whalley to him, coming up pleasantly.

'We scarcely expected you before dinner-time. My wife and my daughters,'

said he, introducing them; but the other only removed his hat ceremoniously, without ever noticing them in the least.

"'I hope you had a pleasant journey, Sir Elkanah?' said Whalley, after a pause, while, with a short jerk of his head, he made signs to the ladies to leave them.

"'I trust I am not the means of breaking up a family party?' said the other, half sarcastically. 'Is Mrs. Whalley--'

"'Lady Whalley, with your good permission, sir,' said Samuel, stiffly.

"'Of course; how stupid of me! I should remember you had been knighted.

And, indeed, the thought was full upon me as I came along, for I scarcely suppose that if higher ambitions had not possessed you, I should find the farm buildings and the outhouse in the state of ruin I see them.'

"'They are better by ten thousand pounds than the day on which I first saw them; and I say it in the presence of this honest townsman here, my neighbor,'--meaning _me_,--'that both _you_ and they were very creaky concerns when I took you in hand.'

"I thought the old Baronet was going to have a fit at these words, and he caught hold of my arm and swayed backwards and forwards all the time, his face purple with pa.s.sion.

"'Who made you, sir? who made you?' cried he, at last, with a voice trembling with rage.

"'The same hand that made ns all,' said the other, calmly. 'The same wise Providence that, for his own ends, creates drones as well as bees, and makes rickety old baronets as well as men of brains and industry.'

"'You shall rue this insolence; it shall cost you dearly, by Heaven!'

cried out the old man, as he gripped me tighter. 'You are a witness, sir, to the way I have been insulted. I 'll foreclose your mortgage--I 'll call in every s.h.i.+lling I have advanced--I 'll sell the house over your head--'

"'Ay! but the head without a roof over it will hold itself higher than your own, old man. The good faculties and good health G.o.d has given me are worth all your t.i.tle-deeds twice told. If I walk out of this town as poor as the day I came into it, I 'll go with the calm certainty that I can earn my bread,--a process that would be very difficult for _you_ when you could not lend out money on interest.'

"'Give me your arm, sir, back to the town,' said the old Baronet to me; I feel myself too ill to go all alone.'