As the acutest observer could rarely be quite sure when Kenelm Chillingly was in jest or in earnest, the parlour-maid paused a moment and attempted a pale smile. Kenelm lifted his dark eyes, unspeakably sad and profound, and said mournfully, "I should be so sorry for the baby. Bring the chops!" The parlour-maid vanished. The boy laid down his knife and fork, and looked fixedly and inquisitively on Kenelm. Kenelm, unheeding the look, placed the last chop on the boy's plate.
"No more," cried the boy, impulsively, and returned the chop to the dish. "I have dined: I have had enough."
"Little boy, you lie," said Kenelm; "you have not had enough to keep body and soul together. Eat that chop or I shall thrash you: whatever I say I do."
Somehow or other the boy felt quelled; he ate the chop in silence, again looked at Kenelm's face, and said to himself, "I am afraid."
The parlour-maid here entered with a fresh supply of chops and a dish of bacon and eggs, soon followed by a rice-pudding baked in a tin dish, and of size sufficient to have nourished a charity school. When the repast was finished, Kenelm seemed to forget the dangerous properties of the carnivorous animal; and stretching himself indolently out, appeared to be as innocently ruminative as the most domestic of animals graminivorous.
Then said the boy, rather timidly, "May I ask you another favour?"
"Is it to knock down another uncle, or to steal another gig and cob?"
"No, it is very simple: it is merely to find out the address of a friend here; and when found to give him a note from me."
"Does the commission press? 'After dinner, rest a while,' saith the proverb; and proverbs are so wise that no one can guess the author of them. They are supposed to be fragments of the philosophy of the antediluvians: came to us packed up in the ark."
"Really, indeed," said the boy, seriously. "How interesting! No, my commission does not press for an hour or so. Do you think, sir, they had any drama before the Deluge?"
"Drama! not a doubt of it. Men who lived one or two thousand years had time to invent and improve everything; and a play could have had its natural length then. It would not have been necessary to crowd the whole history of Macbeth, from his youth to his old age, into an absurd epitome of three hours. One cannot trace a touch of real human nature in any actor's delineation of that very interesting Scotchman, because the actor always comes on the stage as if he were the same age when he murdered Duncan, and when, in his sear and yellow leaf, he was lopped off by Macduff."
"Do you think Macbeth was young when he murdered Duncan?"
"Certainly. No man ever commits a first crime of violent nature, such as murder, after thirty; if he begins before, he may go on up to any age. But youth is the season for commencing those wrong calculations which belong to irrational hope and the sense of physical power. You thus read in the newspapers that the persons who murder their sweethearts are generally from two to six and twenty; and persons who murder from other motives than love—that is, from revenge, avarice, or ambition—are generally about twenty-eight,—Iago's age. Twenty-eight is the usual close of the active season for getting rid of one's fellow-creatures; a prize-fighter falls off after that age. I take it that Macbeth was about twenty-eight when he murdered Duncan, and from about fifty-four to sixty when he began to whine about missing the comforts of old age. But can any audience understand that difference of years in seeing a three-hours' play? or does any actor ever pretend to impress it on the audience, and appear as twenty-eight in the first act and a sexagenarian in the fifth?"
"I never thought of that," said the boy, evidently interested. "But I never saw 'Macbeth.' I have seen 'Richard III.:' is not that nice? Don't you dote on the play? I do. What a glorious life an actor's must be!"
Kenelm, who had been hitherto rather talking to himself than to his youthful companion, here roused his attention, looked on the boy intently, and said,—
"I see you are stage-stricken. You have run away from home in order to turn player, and I should not wonder if this note you want me to give is for the manager of the theatre or one of his company."
The young face that encountered Kenelm's dark eye became very flushed, but set and defiant in its expression.
"And what if it were? would not you give it?"
"What! help a child of your age run away from his home, to go upon the stage against the consent of his relations? Certainly not."
"I am not a child; but that has nothing to do with it. I don't want to go on the stage, at all events without the consent of the person who has a right to dictate my actions. My note is not to the manager of the theatre, nor to one of his company; but it is to a gentleman who condescends to act here for a few nights; a thorough gentleman,—a great actor,—my friend, the only friend I have in the world. I say frankly I have run away from home so that he may have that note, and if you will not give it some one else will!"
The boy had risen while he spoke, and he stood erect beside the recumbent Kenelm, his lips quivering, his eyes suffused with suppressed tears, but his whole aspect resolute and determined. Evidently, if he did not get his own way in this world, it would not be for want of will.
"I will take your note," said Kenelm.
"There it is; give it into the hands of the person it is addressed to,—Mr. Herbert Compton."
CHAPTER IV
KENELM took his way to the theatre, and inquired of the door-keeper for Mr. Herbert Compton. That functionary replied, "Mr. Compton does not act to-night, and is not in the house."
"Where does he lodge?"
The door-keeper pointed to a grocer's shop on the other side of the way, and said tersely, "There, private door; knock and ring."
Kenelm did as he was directed. A slatternly maid-servant opened the door, and, in answer to his interrogatory, said that Mr. Compton was at home, but at supper.
"I am sorry to disturb him," said Kenelm, raising his voice, for he heard a clatter of knives and plates within a room hard by at his left, "but my business requires to see him forthwith;" and, pushing the maid aside, he entered at once the adjoining banquet-hall.
Before a savoury stew smelling strongly of onions sat a man very much at his ease, without coat or neckcloth,—a decidedly handsome man, his hair cut short and his face closely shaven, as befits an actor who has wigs and beards of all hues and forms at his command. The man was not alone; opposite to him sat a lady, who might be a few years younger, of a somewhat faded complexion, but still pretty, with good stage features and a profusion of blond ringlets.
"Mr. Compton, I presume," said Kenelm, with a solemn bow.
"My name is Compton: any message from the theatre? or what do you want with me?"
"I—nothing!" replied Kenelm; and then deepening his naturally mournful voice into tones ominous and tragic, continued, "By whom you are wanted let this explain;" therewith he placed in Mr. Compton's hand the letter with which he was charged, and stretching his arms and interlacing his fingers in the /pose/ of Talma as Julius Caesar, added, "'Qu'en dis-tu, Brute?'"
Whether it was from the sombre aspect and awe-inspiring delivery of the messenger, or the sight of the handwriting on the address of the missive, Mr. Compton's countenance suddenly fell, and his hand rested irresolute, as if not daring to open the letter.
"Never mind me, dear," said the lady with blond ringlets, in a tone of stinging affability: "read your /billet-doux/; don't keep the young man waiting, love!"
"Nonsense, Matilda, nonsense! /billet-doux/ indeed! more likely a bill from Duke the tailor. Excuse me for a moment, my dear. Follow me, sir," and rising, still with shirtsleeves uncovered, he quitted the room, closing the door after him, motioned Kenelm into a small parlour on the opposite side of the passage, and by the light of a suspended gas-lamp ran his eye hastily over the letter, which, though it seemed very short, drew from him sundry exclamations. "Good heavens, how very absurd! what's to be done?" Then, thrusting the letter into his trousers-pocket, he fixed upon Kenelm a very brilliant pair of dark eyes, which soon dropped before the steadfast look of that saturnine adventurer.
"Are you in the confidence of the writer of this letter?" asked Mr.
Compton, rather confusedly.
"I am not the confidant of the writer," answered Kenelm, "but for the time being I am the protector!"
"Protector!"
"Protector."
Mr. Compton again eyed the messenger, and this time fully realizing the gladiatorial development of that dark stranger's physical form, he grew many shades paler, and involuntarily retreated towards the bell-pull.
After a short pause, he said, "I am requested to call on the writer. If I do so, may I understand that the interview will be strictly private?"
"So far as I am concerned, yes: on the condition that no attempt be made to withdraw the writer from the house."
"Certainly not, certainly not; quite the contrary," exclaimed Mr.
Compton, with genuine animation. "Say I will call in half an hour."
"I will give your message," said Kenelm, with a polite inclination of his head; "and pray pardon me if I remind you that I styled myself the protector of your correspondent, and if the slightest advantage be taken of that correspondent's youth and inexperience or the smallest encouragement be given to plans of abduction from home and friends, the stage will lose an ornament and Herbert Compton vanish from the scene." With these words Kenelm left the player standing aghast. Gaining the street-door, a lad with a band-box ran against him and was nearly upset.
"Stupid," cried the lad, "can't you see where you are going? Give this to Mrs. Compton."
"I should deserve the title you give if I did for nothing the business for which you are paid," replied Kenelm, sententiously, and striding on.
CHAPTER V
"I HAVE fulfilled my mission," said Kenelm, on rejoining his travelling companion. "Mr. Compton said he would be here in half an hour."
"You saw him?"
"Of course: I promised to give your letter into his own hands."
"Was he alone?"
"No; at supper with his wife."
"His wife! what do you mean, sir?—wife! he has no wife."
"Appearances are deceitful. At least he was with a lady who called him 'dear' and 'love' in as spiteful a tone of voice as if she had been his wife; and as I was coming out of his street-door a lad who ran against me asked me to give a band-box to Mrs. Compton."
The boy turned as white as death, staggered back a few steps, and dropped into a chair.
A suspicion which during his absence had suggested itself to Kenelm's inquiring mind now took strong confirmation. He approached softly, drew a chair close to the companion whom fate had forced upon him, and said in a gentle whisper,—
"This is no boy's agitation. If you have been deceived or misled, and I can in any way advise or aid you, count on me as women under the circumstances count on men and gentlemen."
The boy started to his feet, and paced the room with disordered steps, and a countenance working with passions which he attempted vainly to suppress. Suddenly arresting his steps, he seized Kenelm's hand, pressed it convulsively, and said, in a voice struggling against a sob,—
"I thank you,—I bless you. Leave me now: I would be alone. Alone, too, I must face this man. There may be some mistake yet; go."
"You will promise not to leave the house till I return?"
"Yes, I promise that."
"And if it be as I fear, you will then let me counsel with and advise you?"
"Heaven help me, if so! Whom else should I trust to? Go, go!"
Kenelm once more found himself in the streets, beneath the mingled light of gas-lamps and the midsummer moon. He walked on mechanically till he reached the extremity of the town. There he halted, and seating himself on a milestone, indulged in these meditations:—
"Kenelm, my friend, you are in a still worse scrape than I thought you were an hour ago. You have evidently now got a woman on your hands. What on earth are you to do with her? A runaway woman, who, meaning to run off with somebody else—such are the crosses and contradictions in human destiny—has run off with you instead. What mortal can hope to be safe? The last thing I thought could befall me when I got up this morning was that I should have any trouble about the other sex before the day was over. If I were of an amatory temperament, the Fates might have some justification for leading me into this snare, but, as it is, those meddling old maids have none. Kenelm, my friend, do you think you ever can be in love? and, if you were in love, do you think you could be a greater fool than you are now?"
Kenelm had not decided this knotty question in the conference held with himself, when a light and soft strain of music came upon his ear. It was but from a stringed instrument, and might have sounded thin and tinkling but for the stillness of the night, and that peculiar addition of fulness which music acquires when it is borne along a tranquil air. Presently a voice in song was heard from the distance accompanying the instrument. It was a man's voice, a mellow and a rich voice, but Kenelm's ear could not catch the words. Mechanically he moved on towards the quarter from which the sounds came, for Kenelm Chillingly had music in his soul, though he was not quite aware of it himself. He saw before him a patch of greensward, on which grew a solitary elm with a seat for wayfarers beneath it. From this sward the ground receded in a wide semicircle bordered partly by shops, partly by the tea-gardens of a pretty cottage-like tavern. Round the tables scattered throughout the gardens were grouped quiet customers, evidently belonging to the class of small tradespeople or superior artisans. They had an appearance of decorous respectability, and were listening intently to the music. So were many persons at the shop-doors and at the windows of upper rooms. On the sward, a little in advance of the tree, but beneath its shadow, stood the musician, and in that musician Kenelm recognized the wanderer from whose talk he had conceived the idea of the pedestrian excursion which had already brought him into a very awkward position. The instrument on which the singer accompanied himself was a guitar, and his song was evidently a love-song, though, as it was now drawing near to its close, Kenelm could but imperfectly guess at its general meaning. He heard enough to perceive that its words were at least free from the vulgarity which generally characterizes street ballads, and were yet simple enough to please a very homely audience.
When the singer ended there was no applause; but there was evident sensation among the audience,—a feeling as if something that had given a common enjoyment had ceased. Presently the white Pomeranian dog, who had hitherto kept himself out of sight under the seat of the elm-tree, advanced, with a small metal tray between his teeth, and, after looking round him deliberately, as if to select whom of the audience should be honoured with the commencement of a general subscription, gravely approached Kenelm, stood on his hind legs, stared at him, and presented the tray.
Kenelm dropped a shilling into that depository, and the dog, looking gratified, took his way towards the tea-gardens. Lifting his hat, for he was, in his way, a very polite man, Kenelm approached the singer, and, trusting to the alteration in his dress for not being recognized by a stranger who had only once before encountered him he said,—
"Judging by the little I heard, you sing very well, sir. May I ask who composed the words?"
"They are mine," replied the singer.
"And the air?"
"Mine too."
"Accept my compliments. I hope you find these manifestations of genius lucrative?"
The singer, who had not hitherto vouchsafed more than a careless glance at the rustic garb of the questioner, now fixed his eyes full upon Kenelm, and said, with a smile, "Your voice betrays you, sir. We have met before."
"True; but I did not then notice your guitar, nor, though acquainted with your poetical gifts, suppose that you selected this primitive method of making them publicly known."
"Nor did I anticipate the pleasure of meeting you again in the character of Hobnail. Hist! let us keep each other's secret. I am known hereabouts by no other designation than that of the 'Wandering Minstrel.'"
"It is in the capacity of minstrel that I address you. If it be not an impertinent question, do you know any songs which take the other side of the case?"
"What case? I don't understand you, sir."
"The song I heard seemed in praise of that sham called love. Don't you think you could say something more new and more true, treating that aberration from reason with the contempt it deserves?"
"Not if I am to get my travelling expenses paid."
"What! the folly is so popular?"
"Does not your own heart tell you so?"
"Not a bit of it,—rather the contrary. Your audience at present seem folks who live by work, and can have little time for such idle phantasies; for, as it is well observed by Ovid, a poet who wrote much on that subject, and professed the most intimate acquaintance with it, 'Idleness is the parent of love.' Can't you sing something in praise of a good dinner? Everybody who works hard has an appetite for food."
The singer again fixed on Kenelm his inquiring eye, but not detecting a vestige of humour in the grave face he contemplated, was rather puzzled how to reply, and therefore remained silent.
"I perceive," resumed Kenelm, "that my observations surprise you: the surprise will vanish on reflection. It has been said by another poet, more reflective than Ovid, that 'the world is governed by love and hunger.' But hunger certainly has the lion's share of the government; and if a poet is really to do what he pretends to do,—namely, represent nature,—the greater part of his lays should be addressed to the stomach." Here, warming with his subject, Kenelm familiarly laid his band on the musician's shoulder, and his voice took a tone bordering on enthusiasm. "You will allow that a man in the normal condition of health does not fall in love every day. But in the normal condition of health he is hungry every day. Nay, in those early years when you poets say he is most prone to love, he is so especially disposed to hunger that less than three meals a day can scarcely satisfy his appetite. You may imprison a man for months, for years, nay, for his whole life,—from infancy to any age which Sir Cornewall Lewis may allow him to attain,—without letting him be in love at all. But if you shut him up for a week without putting something into his stomach, you will find him at the end of it as dead as a door-nail."
Here the singer, who had gradually retreated before the energetic advance of the orator, sank into the seat by the elm-tree and said pathetically, "Sir, you have fairly argued me down. Will you please to come to the conclusion which you deduce from your premises?"
"Simply this, that where you find one human being who cares about love, you will find a thousand susceptible to the charms of a dinner; and if you wish to be the popular minne-singer or troubadour of the age, appeal to nature, sir,—appeal to nature; drop all hackneyed rhapsodies about a rosy cheek, and strike your lyre to the theme of a beefsteak."
The dog had for some minutes regained his master's side, standing on his hind legs, with the tray, tolerably well filled with copper coins, between his teeth; and now, justly aggrieved by the inattention which detained him in that artificial attitude, dropped the tray and growled at Kenelm.
At the same time there came an impatient sound from the audience in the tea-garden. They wanted another song for their money.
The singer rose, obedient to the summons. "Excuse me, sir; but I am called upon to—"
"To sing again?"
"Yes."
"And on the subject I suggest?"
"No, indeed."
"What! love, again?"
"I am afraid so."
"I wish you good evening then. You seem a well-educated man,—more shame to you. Perhaps we may meet once more in our rambles, when the question can be properly argued out."
Kenelm lifted his hat, and turned on his heel. Before he reached the street, the sweet voice of the singer again smote his ears; but the only word distinguishable in the distance, ringing out at the close of the refrain, was "love."
"Fiddle-de-dee," said Kenelm.