Grif: A Story of Australian Life. Farjeon Benjamin Leopold

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СКАЧАТЬ now. What do such men as I in the world? Why, it has been thrown in my teeth this very night that I haven't even soul enough for revenge."

      "Revenge, Richard!" she cried. "Not upon-"

      "No, not that," he said; "nor anything that concerns you or yours. But it has been thrown in my teeth, nevertheless. And it is true. For I am a coward and a craven, if there ever lived one. It is you who have made me feel that I am so; it is you who have shown me to myself in my true colours, and who have torn from me the mask which I-fool that I am! – had almost learnt to believe was my real self, and not a sham! Had you reproached me, had you reviled me, I might have continued to be deceived. But as it is, I tremble before you; I tremble, when I look upon your pale face;" and turning to her suddenly, and meeting the look of patient uncomplaining love in her weary eyes, he cried, "Oh, Alice! Alice! what misery I have brought upon you!"

      "Not more than I can bear, dear love," she said, "if you will be true to yourself and to me. Have patience-"

      "Patience!" he exclaimed. "When I think of the past, I lash myself into a torment. Will patience feed us? Will it give us a roof or a bed? Look here!" and he turned out his pockets. "Not a shilling. Fill my pockets first. Give me the means to fight with my fellow-cormorants, and I will have patience. Till then, I must fret, and fret, and drink. Have you any brandy?"

      "No," she said, with a bitter sigh.

      "Perhaps it is better so," he said, slowly, for his passion had somewhat exhausted him; "for what I have to say might seem the result of courage that does not belong to me. I have refrained from drink to-night that my resolution might not be tampered with."

      He paused to recover himself; Alice bending forward, with clasped hands, waited in anxious expectancy.

      "Do you know how I have spent to-night and many previous nights?" he asked. "In what company, and for what purpose?"

      She had been standing during all this time, and her strength was failing her. She would have fallen, had he not caught her in his arms, whence she sank upon the ground at his feet, and bowed her head in her lap.

      "I have spent to-night, and many other nights," he continued, "in the company of men whose touch, not long since, I should have deemed contamination. I have spent them in the company of villains, who, for some purpose of their own, are striving to inveigle me in their plots. But they will fail. Yes, they will fail, if you will give me strength to keep my resolution. Coward I am, I know, but I am not too great a coward to say that you and I must part."

      "Part!" she echoed, drearily.

      "Look around," he said; "this is a nice home I have provided for you; I have surrounded you with fit associates, have I not? How nobly I have performed my part of husband! How you should bless my name, respect, and love me, for the true manliness I have displayed towards you! But by your patience and your love you have shown me the depth of my degradation."

      "Not degradation, Richard, not degradation for you!"

      "Yes, degradation, and for me, in its coarsest aspect. Is not this degradation?" and he pointed to Grif, who was crouching, observant, in a corner. "Come here," he said to the lad, who slouched towards him, reluctantly. "What are you?"

      "What am I?" replied Grif, with a puzzled look; "I'm a pore boy-Grif."

      "You're a poor boy-Grif!" the man repeated. "How do you live!"

      "By eatin' and drinkin'."

      "How do you get your living?"

      "I makes it as I can," answered Grif, gloomily.

      "And when you can't make it?"

      "Why, then I takes it."

      "That is, you are a thief?"

      "Yes, I s'pose so."

      "And a vagabond?"

      "Yes, I s'pose so."

      "And you have been in prison?"

      "Yes, I've been in quod, I have," said Grif, feeling, for the first time in his life, slightly ashamed of the circumstance.

      "And you say," Richard said, bitterly, as the boy slunk back to his corner, "that this is not degradation!"

      She turned her eyes to the ground, but did not reply.

      "I was once a good arithmetician," he continued. "Let us see what figures there are in the sum of our acquaintance, and what they amount to."

      "Of what use is it to recall the past, Richard?"

      "It may show us how to act in the future. Besides, I have a strange feeling on me to-night, having met with an adventure which I will presently relate. Listen. When I first saw you I was a careless ne'er-do-well, with no thought of the morrow. You did not know this then, but you know it now. It is the curse of my life that I was brought up with expectations. How many possibly useful, if not good, men have been wrecked on that same rock of expectations! Upon the strength of 'expectations' I was reared into an idle incapable. And this I was when you first knew me. I had an income then small, it is true, but sufficient, or if it was not, I got into debt upon the strength of my expectations, which were soon to yield to me a life's resting-place. You know what happened. One day there came a letter, and I learned that, in a commercial crash at home, my income and my expectations had gone to limbo. The news did not hurt me much, Alice, for I had determined on a scheme which, if successful, would give me wealth and worldly prosperity. It is the truth-shamed as I am to speak it-that, knowing you to be an only child and an heiress, I deliberately proposed to myself to win your affections. I said, 'This girl will be rich, and her money will compensate for what I have lost. This girl has a wealthy father, not too well educated, not too well connected, who will be proud when he finds that his daughter has married a gentleman.' In the execution of my settled purpose, I sought your society, and strove to make myself attractive to you. But your pure nature won upon me. The thought that your father was wealthy, and that you would make a good match for me, was soon lost in the love I felt for you. For I learned to love you, honestly, devotedly-nay, keep your place, and do not look at me while I speak, for I am unworthy of the love I sought and gained. Yet, you may believe me when I say, that as I learned to know you, all mercenary thoughts died utterly away. Well, Alice, I won your love, and could not bear to part from you. I had to do something to live; and so that I might be near you, I accepted the post of tutor offered me by your father. I accepted this to be near you-it was happiness enough for the time, and I thought but little of the future. Happy, then, in the present, I had no thought of the passing time, until the day arrived when your father wished to force you into a marriage with a man, ignorant, brutal mean, and vulgar, – but rich. You came to me in your distress-Good God!" he exclaimed passionately; "shall I ever forget the night on which you came to me, and asked for help and for advice? The broad plains, bathed in silver light, stretched out for miles before us. The branches of the old gum-trees glistened with white smiles in the face of the moon-we were encompassed with a peaceful glory. You stood before me, sad and trembling, and the love that had brought sunshine to my heart rushed to my lips" – he stopped suddenly, looked round, and smiled bitterly. Then he continued-"The next day we fled, and at the first town we reached we were married. Then, and then only, you learned for the first time, that the man you had married was a beggar, and was unable to provide for his wife the common comforts of a home. We appealed to your father-you know how he met our appeals. The last time I went, at your request, to his house, he set his dogs upon me-"

      "Richard! Richard!" she cried entreatingly. "Do not recall that time. Be silent for awhile, and calm yourself."

      "I will go on to the end. We came СКАЧАТЬ