A Day's Ride: A Life's Romance. Lever Charles James

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СКАЧАТЬ able to understand and pronounce upon the knotty problem, the subject did not possess interest enough to turn my mind from the details I had just been hearing. The name of Miss Herbert on the trunks showed me now who was the young lady I had met, and I reproached myself bitterly with having separated from her, and thus forfeited the occasion of befriending her on her journey. We were to sup somewhere about eleven, and I resolved that I would do my utmost to discover her, if in the train; and I occupied myself now with imagining numerous pretexts for presuming to offer my services on her behalf. She will readily comprehend the disinterested character of my attentions. She will see that I come in no spirit of levity, but moved by a true sympathy and the respectful sentiment of one touched by her sorrows. I can fancy her coy diffidence giving way before the deferential homage of my manner; and in this I really believe I have some tact. I was not sorry to pursue this theme undisturbed by the presence of my fellow-travellers, who had now got out at a station, leaving me all alone to meditate and devise imaginary conversations with Miss Herbert. I rehearsed to myself the words by which to address her, my bow, my gesture, my faint smile, a blending of melancholy with kindliness, my whole air a union of the deference of the stranger with something almost fraternal. These pleasant musings were now rudely routed by the return of my fellow-travellers, who came hurrying back to their places at the banging summons of a great bell.

      “Everything cold, as usual. It is a perfect disgrace how the public are treated on this line!” cried one.

      “I never think of anything but a biscuit and a glass of ale, and they charged me elevenpence halfpenny for that.”

      “The directors ought to look to this. I saw those ham-sandwiches when I came down here last Tuesday week.”

      “And though the time-table gives us fifteen minutes, I can swear, for I laid my watch on the table, that we only got nine and a half.”

      “Well, I supped heartily off that spiced round.”

      “Supped, supped I Did you say you had supped here, sir?” asked I, in anxiety.

      “Yes, sir; that last station was Trentham. They give us nothing more now till we reach town.”

      I lay back with a faint sigh, and, from that moment, took no note of time till the guard cried “London!”

      CHAPTER X. THE PERILS OF MY JOURNEY TO OSTEND

      “Young lady in deep mourning, sir, – crape shawl and bonnet, sir,” said the official, in answer to my question, aided by a shilling fee; “the same as asked where was the station for the Dover Line.”

      “Yes, yes; that must be she.”

      “Got into a cab, sir, and drove off straight for the Sou’Eastern.”

      “She was quite alone?”

      “Quite, sir; but she seems used to travelling, – got her traps together in no time, and was off in a jiffy.”

      “Stupid dog!” thought I; “with every advantage position and accident can confer, how little this fellow reads of character! In this poor, forlorn, heart-weary orphan, he only sees something like a commercial traveller!”

      “Any luggage, sir? Is this yours?” said he, pointing to a woolsack.

      “No,” said I, haughtily; “my servants have gone forward with my luggage. I have nothing but a knapsack.” And with an air of dignity I flung it into a hansom, and ordered the driver to set me down at the South-Eastern. Although using every exertion, the train had just started when I arrived, and a second time was I obliged to wait some hours at a station. Resolving to free myself from all the captivations of that tendency to day-dreaming, – that fatal habit of suffering my fancy to direct my steps, as though in pursuit of some settled purpose, – I calmly asked myself whither I was going – and for what? Before I had begun the examination, I deemed myself a most candid, truth-observing, frank witness, and now I discovered that I was casuistical and “dodgy” as an Old Bailey lawyer. I was haughty and indignant at being so catechised. My conscience, on the shallow pretext of being greatly interested about me, was simply prying and inquisitive. Conscience is all very well when one desires to appeal to it, and refer some distinct motive or action to its appreciation; but it is scarcely fair, and certainly not dignified, for conscience to go about seeking for little accusations of this kind or that. What liberty of action is there, besides, to a man who carries a “detective” with him wherever he goes? And lastly, conscience has the intolerable habit of obtruding its opinion upon details, and will not wait to judge by results. Now, when I have won the race, come in first, amid the enthusiastic cheers of thousands, I don’t care to be asked, however privately, whether I did not practise some little bit of rather unfair jockeyship. I never could rightly get over my dislike to the friend who would take this liberty with me; and this is exactly the part conscience plays, and with an insufferable air of superiority, too, as though to say, “None of your shuffling with me, Potts! That will do all mighty well with the outer world, but I am not to be humbugged. You never devised a scheme in your life that I was not by at the cookery, and saw how you mixed the ingredients and stirred the pot! No, no, old fellow, all your little secret rogueries will avail you nothing here!”

      Had these words been actually addressed to me by a living individual, I could not have heard them more plainly than now they fell upon my ear, uttered, besides, in a tone of cutting, sarcastic derision. “I will stand this no longer!” cried I, springing up from my seat and flinging my cigar angrily away. “I ‘m certain no man ever accomplished any high and great destiny in life who suffered himself to be bullied in this wise; such irritating, pestering impertinence would destroy the temper of a saint, and break down the courage and damp the ardor of the boldest. Could great measures of statecraft be carried out – could battles be won – could new continents be discovered, if at every strait and every emergency one was to be interrupted by a low voice, whispering, ‘Is this all right? Are there no flaws here? You live in a world of frailties, Potts. You are playing at a round game, where every one cheats a little, and where the Drogueries are never remembered against him who wins. Bear that in your mind, and keep your cards “up.”’”

      When I was about to take my ticket, a dictum of the great moralist struck my mind: “Desultory reading has slain its thousands and tens of thousands;” and if desultory reading, why not infinitely more so desultory acquaintance? Surely, our readings do not impress us as powerfully as the actual intercourse of life. It must be so. It is in this daily conflict with our fellow-men that we are moulded and fashioned; and the danger is, to commingle and confuse the impressions made upon our hearts, to cross the writing on our natures so often that nothing remains legible! “I will guard against this peril,” thought I. “I will concentrate my intentions and travel alone.” I slipped a crown into a guard’s hand, and whispered, “Put no one in here if you can help it” As I jogged along, all by myself, I could not help feeling that one of the highest privileges of wealth must be to be able always to buy solitude, – to be in a position to say, “None shall invade me. The world must contrive to go round without a kick from me. I am a self-contained and self-suffering creature.” If I were Rothschild, I ‘d revel in this sentiment; it places one so immeasurably above that busy ant-hill where one sees the creatures hurrying, hastening, and fagging “till their hearts are broken.” One feels himself a superior intelligence, – a being above the wants and cares of the work-a-day world around him.

      “Any room here?” cried a merry voice, breaking in upon my musing; and at the same instant a young fellow, in a gray travelling-suit and a wideawake, flung a dressing-bag and a wrapper carelessly into the carriage, and so recklessly as to come tumbling over me. He never thought of apology, however, but continued his remarks to the guard, who was evidently endeavoring to induce him to take a place elsewhere. “No, no!” cried the young man; “I’m all right here, and the cove with the yellow hair won’t object to my smoking.”

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