The Smuggler: A Tale. Volumes I-III. G. P. R. James

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СКАЧАТЬ be either six-and-twenty or two-and-thirty. He could not well be younger than the first of those two terms, for he had all the breadth and vigorous proportions of fully-developed manhood. He could not be well older than the latter, for not a trace of passing years, no wrinkle, no furrow, no grayness of hair, no loss of any youthful grace was apparent. Although covered by a large rough coat, then commonly called a wrap-rascal, of the coarsest materials and the rudest form, there was something in his demeanour and his look which at once denoted the gentleman. His hat, too, his gloves, and his boots, which were the only other parts of his dress that the loose coat we have mentioned suffered to be seen, were all not only good, but of the best quality. Though his complexion was dark, and his skin bronzed almost to a mahogany colour by exposure to sun and wind, the features were all fine and regular, and the expression high toned, but somewhat grave, and even sad. He seated himself quietly in the corner of the coach, with his back to the horses; and folding his arms upon his broad chest, gazed out of the window with an abstracted look, though his eyes were turned towards a man with a lantern who was handing something up to the coachman. Thus the old gentleman on the opposite side had a full view of his countenance, and seemed, by the gaze which he fixed upon it, to study it attentively.

      The second of the two gentlemen I have mentioned entered immediately after the first, and was about the same age, but broader in make, and not quite so tall. He was dressed in the height of the mode of that day; and, though not in uniform, bore about him several traces of military costume, which were, indeed, occasionally affected by the dapper shopmen of that period, when they rode up Rotten Row or walked the Mall, but which harmonized so well with his whole appearance and demeanour, as to leave no doubt of their being justly assumed. His features were not particularly good, but far from ugly, his complexion fair, his hair strong and curly; and he would have passed rather for a handsome man than otherwise, had not a deep scar, as if from a sabre-wound, traversed his right cheek and part of his upper lip. His aspect was gay, lively, and good-humoured, and yet there were some strong lines of thought about his brow, with a slightly sarcastic turn of the muscles round the corner of his mouth and nostrils. On entering, he seated himself opposite the second traveller, but without speaking to him, so that the old gentleman who first tenanted the coach could not tell whether they came together or not; and the moment after they had entered, the door was closed, the clerk of the inn looked at the way-bill, the coachman bestowed two or three strokes of his heavy whip on the flanks of his dull cattle, and the lumbering machine moved heavily out, and rolled away towards Westminster Bridge.

      The lights which were under the archway had enabled the travellers to see each other's faces, but when once they had got into the street, the thickness of the air, and the grayness of the dawn, rendered everything indistinct, except the few scattered globe lamps which still remained blinking at the sides of the pavement. The old gentleman sunk back in his corner, wrapped his cloak about him for a nap, and was soon in the land of forgetfulness. His slumbers did not continue very long, however; and when he woke up at the Loompit Hill, he found the sky all rosy with the beams of the rising sun, the country air light and cheerful, and his two companions talking together in familiar tones. After rousing himself, and putting down the window, he passed about five minutes either in contemplating the hedges by the roadside, all glittering in the morning dew, or in considering the faces of his two fellow-travellers, and making up his mind as to their characters and qualities. At the end of that time, as they had now ceased speaking, he said--

      "A beautiful day, gentlemen. I was sure it would be so when we set out."

      The darker and the graver traveller made no reply, but the other smiled good-humouredly, and inquired--

      "May I ask by what you judged, for to me the morning seemed to promise anything but fine weather?"

      "Two things--two things, my dear sir," answered the gentleman in black. "An old proverb and a bad almanack."

      "Indeed!" exclaimed the other. "I should have thought it a very good almanack if it told me to a certainty what sort of weather it would be."

      "Ay, but how did it tell me?" rejoined the elderly traveller, leaning his hand upon the gold head of his cane. "It declared we should have torrents of rain. Now, sir, the world is composed of a great mass of fools with a small portion of sensible men, who, like a little quantity of yeast in a large quantity of dough, make the dumpling not quite so bad as it might be. Of all the fools that I ever met with, however, the worst are scientific fools, for they apply themselves to tell all the other fools in the world that of which they themselves know nothing, or at all events very little, which is worse. I have examined carefully, in the course of a long life, how to deal with these gentry, and I find that if you believe the exact reverse of any information they give you, you will be right nine hundred and ninety-seven times out of a thousand. I made a regular calculation of it some years ago; and although at first sight it would seem that the chances are equal, that these men should be right or wrong, I found the result as I have stated, and have acted upon it ever since in perfect security. If they trusted to mere guess work, the chances might, perhaps, be equal, but they make such laborious endeavours to lead themselves wrong, and so studiously avoid everything that could lead them right, that the proportion is vastly against them."

      "If such be their course of proceeding, the result will be naturally as you say," answered the gentleman to whom he spoke; "but I should think that as the variations of the weather must proceed from natural causes constantly recurring, observation and calculation might arrive at some certainty regarding them."

      "Hold the sea in the hollow of your hand," cried the old gentleman, impatiently; "make the finite contain the infinite; put twenty thousand gallons into a pint pot,--and when you have done all that, then calculate the causes that produce rain to-day and wind to-morrow, or sunshine one day and clouds the next. Men say the same cause acting under the same circumstances will always produce the same effect--good; I grant that, merely for the sake of argument. But I contend that the same effect may be produced by a thousand causes or more. A man knocks you down; you fall: that's the effect produced by one cause; but a fit of apoplexy may make you fall exactly in the same way. Then apply the cause at the other end if you like, and trip your foot over a stone, or over some bunches of long grass that mischievous boys have tied across the path--down you come, just as if a quarrelsome companion had tapped you on the head. No, no, sir; the only way of ascertaining what the weather will be from one hour to another is by a barometer. That's not very sure, and the best I know of is a cow's tail, or a piece of dried seaweed. But these men of science, they do nothing but go out mare's-nesting from morning till night, and a precious number of horses' eggs they have found!"

      Thus commenced a conversation which lasted for some time, and in which the younger traveller seemed to find some amusement, plainly perceiving, what the reader has already discovered, that his elderly companion was an oddity. The other tenant of the coach made no observation, but remained with his arms folded on his chest, sometimes looking out of the window, sometimes gazing down at his own knee in deep thought. About ten miles from town the coach passed some led horses, with the grooms that were conducting them; and, as is natural for young men, both the old gentleman's fellow-travellers put their heads to the window, and examined the animals with a scrutinizing eye.

      "Fine creatures, fine creatures--horses!" said the gentleman in black.

      "Those are very fine ones," answered the graver of the two young men; "I think I never saw better points about any beast than that black charger."

      "Ay, sir; you are a judge of horse-flesh, I suppose," rejoined the old gentleman; "but I was speaking of horses in the abstract. They are noble creatures indeed; and as matters have fallen out in this world, I can't help thinking that there is a very bad arrangement, and that those at the top of the tree should be a good way down. If all creatures had their rights, man would not be the cock of the walk, as he is now--a feeble, vain, self-sufficient, sensual monkey, who has no farther advantages over other apes than being able to speak and cook his dinner."

      "May I ask," inquired СКАЧАТЬ