A Day's Ride Part 36

"And who are you, sir, that presume to play the advocate here?" said the judge, haughtily. "I fancied that you stood there to answer a charge against yourself."

"That matter may be very easily disposed of, sir," said I, as proudly; "and you will be very fortunate if you succeed as readily in explaining your own illegal arrest of me to the higher court of your country."

With the eloquence which we are told essentially belongs to truth, I narrated how I had witnessed, as a mere pa.s.sing traveller, the outrageous insult offered to these poor wanderers as they entered the inn. With the warm enthusiasm of one inspired by a good cause, I painted the whole incident with really scarcely a touch of embellishment, reserving the only decorative portion to a description of myself, whom I mentioned as an agent of the British government, especially employed on a peculiar service, the confirmation of which I proudly established by my pa.s.sport setting forth that I was a certain "Ponto, Charge des Depeches."

Now if there be one feature of continental life fixed and immutable, it is this: that wherever the German language be spoken, the reverence for a government functionary is supreme. If you can only show on doc.u.mentary evidence that you are grandson of the man who made the broom that swept out a government office, it is enough. You are from that hour regarded as one of the younger children of Bureaucracy. You are under the protection of the state, and though you be but the smallest rivet in the machinery, there is no saying what mischief might not ensue if you were either lost or mislaid.

I saw in an instant the dread impression I had created, and I said, in a voice of careless insolence, "Go on, I beg of you; send me back to prison; chain me; perhaps you would like to torture me? The government I represent is especially slow in vindicating the rights of its injured officials. It has a European reputation for long-suffering, patience, and forbearance. Yes, Englishmen can be impaled, burned, flayed alive, disembowelled. By all means, avail yourselves of your bland privileges; have me led out instantly to the scaffold, unless you prefer to have me broken on the wheel!"

"Will n.o.body stop him!" cried the president, almost choking with wrath.

"Stop me; I suspect not, sir. It is upon these declarations of mine, made thus openly, that my country will found that demand for reparation which will one day cost you so dearly. Lead on, I am ready for the block." And as I said this, I untied my cravat, and appeared to prepare for the headsman.

"If he will not cease, the court shall be dissolved," called out the judge.

"Never, sir. Never, so long as I live, shall I surrender the glorious privileges of that freedom by which I a.s.sert my birthright as a Briton."

"Well, you are as impudent a chap as ever I listened to," muttered my countryman at my side.

"The prisoners are dismissed, the court is adjourned," said the president, rising; and amidst a very disorderly crowd, not certainly enthusiastic in our favor, we were all hurried into the street.

"Come along down here," said Mr. Harpar. "I 'm in a very tidy sort of place they call the 'Golden Pig.' Come along, and bring the vagabonds, and let's have breakfast together."

I was hurt at the speech; but as my companions could not understand its coa.r.s.eness, I accepted the invitation, and we followed him.

"Well, I ain't seen _your_ like for many a day," said Harpar, as we went along. "If you 'd have said the half of that to one of our 'Beaks,' I think I know where you 'd be. But you seem to understand the fellows well. Mayhap you have lived much abroad?"

"A great deal. I am a sort of citizen of the world," said I, with a jaunty easiness.

"For a citizen of the world you appear to have strange tastes in your companions.h.i.+p. How did you come to forgather with these creatures?"

I tried the timeworn cant about seeing life in all its gradations,--exploring the cabin as well as visiting the palace, and so on; but there was a rugged sort of incredulity in his manner that checked me, and I could not muster the glib rudeness which usually stood by me on such occasions.

"You 're not a man of fortune," said he, dryly, as I finished; "one sees that plainly enough. You 're a fellow that should be earning his bread somehow; and the question is,--Is this the kind of life that you ought to be leading? What humbug it is to talk about knowing the world and such-like. The thing is, to know a trade, to understand some art, to be able to produce something, to manufacture something, to convert something to a useful purpose. When you 've done that, the knowledge of men will come later on, never be afraid of that. It's a school that we never miss one single day of our lives. But here we are; this is the 'Pig.' Now, what will you have for breakfast? Ask the vagabonds, too, and tell them there's a wide choice here; they have everything you can mention in this little inn."

An excellent breakfast was soon spread out before us, and though my humble companions did it the most ample justice, I sat there, thoughtful and almost sad. The words of that stranger rang in my ears like a reproach and a warning. I knew how truly he had said that I was not a man of fortune, and it grieved me sorely to think how easily he saw it.

In my heart of hearts I knew it was the delusion I loved best To appear to the world at large an eccentric man of good means, free to do what he liked and go where he would, was the highest enjoyment I had ever prepared for myself; and yet here was a coa.r.s.e, commonplace sort of man,--at least, his manners were unpolished and his tone underbred,--and he saw through it all at once.

I took the first opportunity to slip away un.o.bserved from the company, and retired to the little garden of the inn, to commune with myself and be alone. But ere I had been many minutes there, Harpar joined me.

He came up smoking his cigar, with the lounging, lazy air of a man at perfect leisure, and, consequently, quite free to be as disagreeable as he pleased.

"You went off without eating your breakfast," said he, bluntly. "I saw how it was. You did n't like _my_ freedom with you. You fancied that I ought to have taken all that nonsense of yours about your rank and your way of life for gospel; or, at least, that I ought to have pretended to do so. That ain't my way. I hate humbug."

It was not very easy to reply good humoredly to such a speech as this.

Indeed, I saw no particular reason to treat this man's freedom with any indulgence, and drawing myself haughtily up, I prepared a very dry but caustic rejoinder.

"When I have learned two points," said I, "on which you can inform me, I may be better able to answer what you have said. The first is: By what possible right do you take to task a person that you never met in your life till now? and, secondly, What benefit on earth could it be to me to impose upon a man from whom I neither want nor expect anything?"

"Easily met, both," said he, quickly. "I'm a practical sort of fellow, who never wastes time on useless materials; that's for your first proposition. Number two: you're a dreamer, and you hate being awakened."

"Well, sir," said I, stiffly, "to a gentleman so remarkable for perspicuity, and who reads character at sight, ordinary intercourse must be wearisome. Will you excuse me if I take my leave of you here?"

"Of course, make no ceremony about it; go or stay, Just as you like. I never cross any man's humor."

I muttered something that sounded like a dissent to that doctrine, and he quickly added, "I mean, further than speaking my mind, that 's all; nothing more. If you had been a man of fair means, and for a frolic thought it might be good fun to consort for a few days with rapscallions of a travelling circus, all one could say was, it was n't very good taste; but being, evidently, a fellow of another stamp, a young man who ought to be in his father's shop or his uncle's counting-house, following some honest craft or calling,--for _you_, I say, it was downright ruin."

"Indeed!" said I, with an accent of intense scorn.

"Yes," continued he, seriously, "downright ruin, There's a poison in the lazy, good-for-nothing life of these devils, that never leaves a man's blood. I 've a notion that it would n't hurt a man's nature so much were he to consort with housebreakers; there's, at least, something real about these fellows."

"You talk, doubtless, with knowledge, sir," said I, glad to say something that might offend him.

"I do," said he, seriously, and not taking the smallest account of the impertinent allusion. "I know that if a man has n't a fixed calling, but is always turning his hand to this, that, and t' other, he will very soon cease to have any character whatsoever; he 'll just become as s.h.i.+fty in his nature as in his business. I 've seen scores of fellows wrecked on that rock, and I had n't looked at you twice till I saw you were one of them."

"I must say, sir," said I, summoning to my aid what I felt to be a most cutting sarcasm of manner,--"I must say, sir, that, considering how short has been the acquaintance which has subsisted between us, it would be extremely difficult for me to show how gratefully I feel the interest you have taken in me."

"Well, I 'm not so sure of that," said he, thoughtfully.

"May I ask, then, how?"

"Are you sure, first of all, that you wish to show this grat.i.tude you speak of?"

"Oh, sir, can you possibly doubt it?"

"I don't want to doubt it, I want to profit by it."

I made a bland bow that might mean anything, but did not speak.

"Here's the way of it," said he, boldly. "Rigges has run off with all my loose cash, and though there 's money waiting for me at certain places, I shall find it very difficult to reach them. I have come down here on foot from Wild-bad, and I can make my way in the same fas.h.i.+on, to Ma.r.s.eilles or Genoa; but then comes the difficulty, and I shall need about ten pounds to get to Malta. Could you lend me ten pounds?"

"Really, sir," said I, coolly, "I am amazed at the innocence with which you can make such a demand on the man whom you have, only a few minutes back, so acutely depicted as an adventurer."

"It was for that very reason I thought of applying to you. Had you been a young fellow of a certain fortune, you 'd naturally have been a stranger to the accidents which now and then leave men penniless in out-of-the-way places, and it is just as likely that the first thought in your head would be, 'Oh, he's a swindler. Why has n't he his letters of credit or his circular notes?' But, being exactly what I take you for, the chances are, you 'll say: 'What has befallen _him_ to-day may chance to _me_ to-morrow. Who can tell the day and the hour some mishap may not overtake him? and so I 'll just help him through it.'"

"And that was your calculation?"

"That was my calculation."

"How sorry I feel to wound the marvellous gift you seem to possess of interpreting character. I am really shocked to think that for this time, at least, your acuteness is at fault."

"Which means that you 'll not do it."

I smiled a benign a.s.sent.

He looked at me for a minute or more with a sort of blank incredulity, and then, crossing his arms on his breast, moved slowly down the walk without speaking.

I cannot say how I detested this man; he had offended me in the very sorest part of all my nature; he had wounded the nicest susceptibility I possessed; of the pleasant fancies wherewith I loved to clothe myself he would not leave me enough to cover my nakedness; and yet, now that I had resented his cool impertinence, I hated myself far more than I hated him. Dignity and sarcasm, forsooth! What a fine opportunity to display them, truly! The man might be rude and underbred; he _was_ rude and underbred! and was that any justification for _my_ conduct towards him? Why had I not had the candor to say, "Here 's all I possess in the world; you see yourself that I cannot lend you ten pounds." How I wished I had said that, and how I wished, even more ardently still, that I had never met him, never interchanged speech with him!

"And why is it that I am offended with him,--simply because he has discovered that I am Potts?" Now, these reflections were all the more bitter, since it was only twenty-four hours before that I had resolved to throw off delusion either of myself or others; that I would take my place in the ranks, and fight out my battle of life a mere soldier. For this it was that I made companions.h.i.+p with Vaterehen, walking the high road with that poor old man of motley, and actually speculating--in a sort of artistic way--whether I should not make love to Tintefleck! And if I were sincere in all this, how should I feel wounded by the honest candor of that plain-spoken fellow. He wanted a favor at my hands, he owned this; and yet, instead of approaching me with flattery, he at once a.s.sails the very stronghold of my self-esteem, and says, "No humbug, Potts; at least none with _me!_" He opens acquaintance with me on that masonic principle by which the brotherhood of Poverty is maintained throughout all lands and all peoples, and whose great maxim is, "He who lends to the poor man borrows from the ragged man."