CHAPTER VI
The vagrant having got his dog, proceeds to hunt fortune with it, leaving behind him a trap to catch rats.—What the trap does catch is “just like his luck.”
Sir Isaac, to designate him by his new name, improved much upon acquaintance. He was still in the ductile season of youth, and took to learning as an amusement to himself. His last master, a stupid sot, had not gained his affections; and perhaps even the old soldier, though gratefully remembered and mourned, had not stolen into his innermost heart, as Waife and Sophy gently contrived to do. In short, in a very few days he became perfectly accustomed and extremely attached to them. When Waife had ascertained the extent of his accomplishments, and added somewhat to their range in matters which cost no great trouble, he applied himself to the task of composing a little drama which might bring them all into more interesting play, and in which though Sophy and himself were performers the dog had the premier role. And as soon as this was done, and the dog’s performances thus ranged into methodical order and sequence, he resolved to set off to a considerable town at some distance, and to which Mr. Rugge was no visitor.
His bill at the cottage made but slight inroad into his pecuniary resources; for in the intervals of leisure from his instructions to Sir Isaac, Waife had performed various little services to the lone widow with whom they lodged, which Mrs. Saunders (such was her name) insisted upon regarding as money’s worth. He had repaired and regulated to a minute an old clock which had taken no note of time for the last three years; he had mended all the broken crockery by some cement of his own invention, and for which she got him the materials. And here his ingenuity was remarkable, for when there was only a fragment to be found of a cup and a fragment or two of a saucer, he united them both into some pretty form, which, if not useful, at all events looked well on a shelf. He bound, in smart showy papers, sundry tattered old books which had belonged to his landlady’s defunct husband, a Scotch gardener, and which she displayed on a side table, under the japan tea-tray. More than all, he was of service to her in her vocation; for Mrs. Saunders eked out a small pension—which she derived from the affectionate providence of her Scotch husband, in insuring his life in her favour—by the rearing and sale of poultry; and Waife saved her the expense of a carpenter by the construction of a new coop, elevated above the reach of the rats, who had hitherto made sad ravage amongst the chickens; while he confided to her certain secrets in the improvement of breed and the cheaper processes of fattening, which excited her gratitude no less than her wonder. “The fact is,” said Gentleman Waife, “that my life has known makeshifts. Once, in a foreign country, I kept poultry, upon the principle that the poultry should keep me.”
Strange it was to notice such versatility of invention, such readiness of resource, such familiarity with divers nooks and crannies in the practical experience of life, in a man now so hard put to it for a livelihood. There are persons, however, who might have a good stock of talent, if they did not turn it all into small change. And you, reader, know as well as I do, that when a sovereign or a shilling is once broken into, the change scatters and dispends itself in a way quite unaccountable. Still coppers are useful in household bills; and when Waife was really at a pinch, somehow or other, by hook or by crook, he scraped together intellectual halfpence enough to pay his way.
Mrs. Saunders grew quite fond of her lodgers. Waife she regarded as a prodigy of genius; Sophy was the prettiest and best of children. Sir Isaac, she took for granted, was worthy of his owners. But the Comedian did not confide to her his dog’s learning, nor the use to which he designed to put it. And in still greater precaution, when he took his leave, he extracted from Mrs. Saunders a solemn promise that she would set no one on his track in case of impertinent inquiries.
“You see before you,” said he, “a man who has enemies, such as rats are to your chickens: chickens despise rats when raised, as yours are now, above the reach of claws and teeth. Some day or other I may so raise a coop for that little one: I am too old for coops. Meanwhile, if a rat comes sneaking here after us, send it off the wrong way, with a flea in its ear.”
Mrs. Saunders promised, between tears and laughter; blessed Waife, kissed Sophy, patted Sir Isaac, and stood long at her threshold watching the three, as the early sun lit their forms receding in the narrow green lane,—dewdrops sparkling on the hedgerows, and the skylark springing upward from the young corn.
Then she slowly turned indoors, and her home seemed very solitary. We can accustom ourselves to loneliness, but we should beware of infringing the custom. Once admit two or three faces seated at your hearthside, or gazing out from your windows on the laughing sun, and when they are gone, they carry off the glow from your grate and the sunbeam from your panes. Poor Mrs. Saunders! in vain she sought to rouse herself, to put the rooms to rights, to attend to the chickens to distract her thoughts. The one-eyed cripple, the little girl, the shaggy-faced dog, still haunted her; and when at noon she dined all alone off the remnants of the last night’s social supper, the very click of the renovated clock seemed to say, “Gone, gone;” and muttering, “Ah! gone,” she reclined back on her chair, and indulged herself in a good womanlike cry. From this luxury she was startled by a knock at the door. “Could they have come back?” No; the door opened, and a genteel young man, in a black coat and white neckcloth, stepped in.
“I beg your pardon, ma’am—your name ‘s Saunders—sell poultry?”
“At your service, sir. Spring chickens?” Poor people, whatever their grief, must sell their chickens, if they have any to sell.
“Thank you, ma’am; not at this moment. The fact is, that I call to make some inquiries Have not you lodgers here?”
Lodgers! at that word the expanding soul of Mrs. Saunders reclosed hermetically; the last warning of Waife revibrated in her ears this white neckclothed gentleman, was he not a rat?
“No, sir, I ha’n’t no lodgers.”
“But you have had some lately, eh? a crippled elderly man and a little girl.”
“Don’t know anything about them; leastways,” said Mrs. Saunders, suddenly remembering that she was told less to deny facts than to send inquirers upon wrong directions, “leastways, at this blessed time. Pray, sir, what makes you ask?”
“Why, I was instructed to come down to ———, and find out where this person, one William Waife, had gone. Arrived yesterday, ma’am. All I could hear is, that a person answering to his description left the place several days ago, and had been seen by a boy, who was tending sheep, to come down the lane to your house, and you were supposed to have lodgers (you take lodgers sometimes, I think, ma’am), because you had been buying some trifling articles of food not in your usual way of custom. Circumstantial evidence, ma’am: you can have no motive to conceal the truth.”
“I should think not indeed, sir,” retorted Mrs. Saunders, whom the ominous words “circumstantial evidence” set doubly on her guard. “I did see a gentleman such as you mention, and a pretty young lady, about ten days agone, or so, and they did lodge here a night or two, but they are gone to—”
“Yes, ma’am,—gone where?”
“Lunnon.”
“Really—very likely. By the train or on foot?”
“On foot, I s’pose.”
“Thank you, ma’am. If you should see them again, or hear where they are, oblige me by conveying this card to Mr. Waife. My employer, ma’am, Mr. Gotobed, Craven Street, Strand,—eminent solicitor. He has something of importance to communciate to Mr. Waife.”
“Yes, sir,—a lawyer; I understand.” And as of all ratlike animals in the world Mrs. Saunders had the ignorance to deem a lawyer was the most emphatically devouring, she congratulated herself with her whole heart on the white lies she had told in favour of the intended victims.
The black-coated gentleman having thus obeyed his instructions and attained his object, nodded, went his way, and regained the fly which he had left at the turnstile. “Back to the inn,” cried he, “quick: I must be in time for the three o’clock train to London.”
And thus terminated the result of the great barrister’s first instructions to his eminent solicitor to discover a lame man and a little girl. No inquiry, on the whole, could have been more skilfully conducted. Mr. Gotobed sends his head clerk; the head clerk employs the policeman of the village; gets upon the right track; comes to the right house; and is altogether in the wrong,—in a manner highly creditable to his researches.
“In London, of course: all people of that kind come back to London,” said Mr. Gotobed. “Give me the heads in writing, that I may report to my distinguished client. Most satisfactory. That young man will push his way,—businesslike and methodical.”
CHAPTER VII
The cloud has its silver lining.
Thus turning his back on the good fortune which he had so carefully cautioned Mrs. Saunders against favouring on his behalf, the vagrant was now on his way to the ancient municipal town of Gatesboro’, which, being the nearest place of fitting opulence and population, Mr. Waife had resolved to honour with the debut of Sir Isaac as soon as he had appropriated to himself the services of that promising quadruped. He had consulted a map of the county before quitting Mr. Merle’s roof, and ascertained that he could reach Gatesboro’ by a short cut for foot-travellers along fields and lanes. He was always glad to avoid the high road: doubtless for such avoidance he had good reasons. But prudential reasons were in this instance supported by vagrant inclinations. High roads are for the prosperous. By-paths and ill-luck go together. But by-paths have their charm, and ill-luck its pleasant moments.
They passed then from the high road into a long succession of green pastures, through which a straight public path conducted them into one of those charming lanes never seen out of this bowery England,—a lane deep sunk amidst high banks with overhanging oaks, and quivering ash, gnarled wych-elm, vivid holly and shaggy brambles, with wild convolvulus and creeping woodbine forcing sweet life through all. Sometimes the banks opened abruptly, leaving patches of green sward, and peeps through still sequestered gates, or over moss-grown pales, into the park or paddock of some rural thane. New villas or old manor-houses on lawny uplands, knitting, as it were, together England’s feudal memories with England’s freeborn hopes,—the old land with its young people; for England is so old, and the English are so young! And the gray cripple and the bright-haired child often paused, and gazed upon the demesnes and homes of owners whose lots were cast in such pleasant places. But there was no grudging envy in their gaze; perhaps because their life was too remote from those grand belongings. And therefore they could enjoy and possess every banquet of the eye. For at least the beauty of what we see is ours for the moment, on the simple condition that we do not covet the thing which gives to our eyes that beauty. As the measureless sky and the unnumbered stars are equally granted to king and to beggar; and in our wildest ambition we do not sigh for a monopoly of the empyrean, or the fee-simple of the planets: so the earth too, with all its fenced gardens and embattled walls, all its landmarks of stern property and churlish ownership, is ours too by right of eye. Ours to gaze on the fair possessions with such delight as the gaze can give; grudging to the unseen owner his other, and, it may be, more troubled rights, as little as we grudge an astral proprietor his acres of light in Capricorn. Benignant is the law that saith, “Thou shalt not covet.”
When the sun was at the highest our wayfarers found a shadowy nook for their rest and repast. Before them ran a shallow limpid trout-stream; on the other side its margin, low grassy meadows, a farmhouse in the distance, backed by a still grove, from which rose a still church tower and its still spire. Behind them, a close-shaven sloping lawn terminated the hedgerow of the lane; seen clearly above it, with parterres of flowers on the sward, drooping lilacs and laburnums farther back, and a pervading fragrance from the brief-lived and rich syringas. The cripple had climbed over a wooden rail that separated the lane from the rill, and seated himself under the shade of a fantastic hollow thorn-tree. Sophy, reclined beside him, was gathering some pale scentless violets from a mound which the brambles had guarded from the sun. The dog had descended to the waters to quench his thirst, but still stood knee-deep in the shallow stream, and appeared lost in philosophical contemplation of a swarm of minnows, which his immersion had disturbed, but which now made itself again visible on the farther side of the glassy brook, undulating round and round a tiny rocklet which interrupted the glide of the waves, and caused them to break into a low melodious murmur. “For these and all thy mercies, O Lord, make us thankful,” said the victim of ill-luck, in the tritest words of a pious custom. But never, perhaps, at aldermanic feasts was the grace more sincerely said.
And then he untied the bundle, which the dog, who had hitherto carried it by the way, had now carefully deposited at his side. “As I live,” ejaculated Waife, “Mrs. Saunders is a woman in ten thousand. See, Sophy, not contented with the bread and cheese to which I bade her stint her beneficence, a whole chicken,—a little cake too for you, Sophy; she has not even forgotten the salt. Sophy, that woman deserves the handsomest token of our gratitude; and we will present her with a silver teapot the first moment we can afford it.”
His spirits exhilarated by the unexpected good cheer, the Comedian gave way to his naturally blithe humour; and between every mouthful he rattled or rather drolled on, now infant-like, now sage-like. He cast out the rays of his liberal humour, careless where they fell,—on the child, on the dog, on the fishes that played beneath the wave, on the cricket that chirped amidst the grass; the woodpecker tapped the tree, and the cripple’s merry voice answered it in bird-like mimicry. To this riot of genial babble there was a listener, of whom neither grandfather nor grandchild was aware. Concealed by thick brushwood a few paces farther on, a young angler, who might be five or six and twenty, had seated himself, just before the arrival of our vagrant to those banks and waters, for the purpose of changing an unsuccessful fly. At the sound of voices, perhaps suspecting an unlicensed rival, for that part of the stream was preserved,—he had suspended his task, and noiselessly put aside the clustering leaves to reconnoitre. The piety of Waife’s simple grace seemed to surprise him pleasingly, for a sweet approving smile crossed his lips. He continued to look and to listen. He forgot the fly, and a trout sailed him by unheeded. But Sir Isaac, having probably satisfied his speculative mind as to the natural attributes of minnows, now slowly reascended the bank, and after a brief halt and a sniff, walked majestically towards the hidden observer, looked at him with great solemnity, and uttered an inquisitive bark,—a bark not hostile, not menacing; purely and dryly interrogative. Thus detected, the angler rose; and Waife, whose attention was directed that way by the bark, saw him, called to Sir Isaac, and said politely, “There is no harm in my dog, sir.”
The young man muttered some inaudible reply, and, lifting up his rod as in sign of his occupation or excuse for his vicinity, came out from the intervening foliage, and stepped quietly to Waife’s side. Sir Isaac followed him, sniffed again, seemed satisfied; and seating himself on his haunches, fixed his attention upon the remains of the chicken which lay defenceless on the grass. The new comer was evidently of the rank of gentleman; his figure was slim and graceful, his face pale, meditative, refined. He would have impressed you at once with the idea of what he really was,—an Oxford scholar; and you would perhaps have guessed him designed for the ministry of the Church, if not actually in orders.
CHAPTER VIII
Mr. Waife excites the admiration, and benignly pities the infirmity, of an Oxford scholar.
“You are str-str-strangers?” said the Oxonian, after a violent exertion to express himself, caused by an impediment in his speech.
WAIFE.—“Yes, sir, travellers. I trust we are not trespassing: this is not private ground, I think?”
OXONIAN.—“And if-f-f-f—it were, my f-f-father would not war-n-n you off-ff—f.”
“Is it your father’s ground, then? Sir, I beg you a thousand pardons.”
The apology was made in the Comedian’s grandest style: it imposed greatly on the young scholar. Waife might have been a duke in disguise; but I will do the angler the justice to say that such discovery of rank would have impressed him little more in the vagrant’s favour. It had been that impromptu “grace”—that thanksgiving which the scholar felt was for something more than the carnal food—which had first commanded his respect and wakened his interest. Then that innocent careless talk—part uttered to dog and child, part soliloquized, part thrown out to the ears of the lively teeming Nature—had touched a somewhat kindred chord in the angler’s soul; for he was somewhat of a poet and much of a soliloquist, and could confer with Nature, nor feel that impediment in speech which obstructed his intercourse with men. Having thus far indicated that oral defect in our new acquaintance, the reader will cheerfully excuse me for not enforcing it over much. Let it be among the things subaudita, as the sense of it gave to a gifted and aspiring nature, thwarted in the sublime career of Preacher, an exquisite mournful pain. And I no more like to raise a laugh at his infirmity behind his back, than I should before his pale, powerful, melancholy face; therefore I suppress the infirmity in giving the reply.
OXONIAN.—“On the other side the lane, where the garden slopes downward, is my father’s house. This ground is his property certainly, but he puts it to its best use, in lending it to those who so piously acknowledge that Father from whom all good comes. Your child, I presume, sir?”
“My grandchild.”
“She seems delicate: I hope you have not far to go?”
“Not very far, thank you, sir. But my little girl looks more delicate than she is. You are not tired, darling?”
“Oh, not at all!” There was no mistaking the looks of real love interchanged between the old man and the child; the scholar felt much interested and somewhat puzzled.
“Who and what could they be? so unlike foot wayfarers!” On the other hand, too, Waife took a liking to the courteous young man, and conceived a sincere pity for his physical affliction. But he did not for those reasons depart from the discreet caution he had prescribed to himself in seeking new fortunes and shunning old perils, so he turned the subject.
“You are an angler, sir? I suppose the trout in the stream run small?”
“Not very: a little higher up I have caught them at four pounds weight.”
WAIFE.—“There goes a fine fish yonder,—see! balancing himself between those weeds.”
OXONIAN.—“Poor fellow, let him be safe to-day. After all, it is a cruel sport, and I should break myself of it. But it is strange that whatever our love for Nature we always seek some excuse for trusting ourselves alone to her. A gun, a rod, a sketch-book, a geologist’s hammer, an entomologist’s net, a something.”
WAIFE.—“Is it not because all our ideas would run wild if not concentrated on a definite pursuit? Fortune and Nature are earnest females, though popular beauties; and they do not look upon coquettish triflers in the light of genuine wooers.”
The Oxonian, who, in venting his previous remark, had thought it likely he should be above his listener’s comprehension, looked surprised. What pursuits, too, had this one-eyed philosopher?
“You have a definite pursuit, sir?”
“I—alas! when a man moralizes, it is a sign that he has known error: it is because I have been a trifler that I rail against triflers. And talking of that, time flies, and we must be off and away.”
Sophy re-tied the bundle. Sir Isaac, on whom, meanwhile, she had bestowed the remains of the chicken, jumped up and described a circle.
“I wish you success in your pursuit, whatever it be,” stuttered out the angler.
“And I no less heartily, sir, wish you success in yours.”
“Mine! Success there is beyond my power.”
“How, sir? Does it rest so much with others?”
“No, my failure is in myself. My career should be the Church, my pursuit the cure of souls, and—and—this pitiful infirmity! How can I speak the Divine Word—I—I—a stutterer!”
The young man did not pause for an answer, but plunged through the brushwood that bespread the banks of the rill, and his hurried path could be traced by the wave of the foliage through which he forced his way.
“We all have our burdens,” said Gentleman Waife, as Sir Isaac took up the bundle and stalked on, placid and refreshed.