I quote again from another portion of the same chapter in Macaulay:—“Slate has succeeded to thatch, and brick to timber. The pavements and the lamps, the display of wealth in the principal shops, and the luxurious neatness of the dwellings occupied by the gentry, would, in the seventeenth century, have seemed miraculous.” Speaking of watering-places he says:—“The gentry of Derbyshire and of the neighbouring counties repaired to Buxton, where they were crowded into low wooden sheds and regaled with oatcake, and with a viand which the hosts called mutton, but which the guests strongly suspected to be dog.” Of Tunbridge Wells he says—“At present we see there a town which would, a hundred and sixty years ago, have ranked in population fourth or fifth among the towns in England. The brilliancy of the shops and the luxury of the private dwellings far surpasses anything that England could then show.” At Bath “the poor patients to whom the waters had been recommended, lay on straw in a place which, to use the language of a contemporary physician, was a covert rather than a lodging. As to the comforts and luxuries to be found in the interior of the houses at Bath by the fashionable visitors who resorted thither in search of health and amusement, we possess information more complete and minute than generally can be obtained on such subjects. A writer assures us that in his younger days the gentlemen who visited the springs slept in rooms hardly as good as the garrets which he lived to see occupied by footmen. The floors of the dining-room were uncarpeted, and were coloured brown with a wash made of soot and small beer in order to hide the dirt. Not a wainscot was painted. Not a hearth or chimney piece was of marble. A slab of common freestone, and fire-irons which had cost from three to four shillings, were thought sufficient for any fireplace. The best apartments were hung with coarse woollen stuff, and were furnished with rush-bottomed chairs.”
Of London Macaulay says:—“The town did not, as now, fade by imperceptible degrees into the country. No long avenues of villas, embowered in lilacs and laburnum, extended from the great source of wealth and civilization almost to the boundaries of Middlesex, and far into the heart of Kent and Surrey.” In short, there was nothing like the Avenue and the Fox Grove, Beckenham, in old times, and we who live there ought to be immensely grateful for our undeserved blessings. “At present,” he says, “the bankers, the merchants, and the chief shopkeepers repair to the city on six mornings of every week for the transaction of business; but they reside in other quarters of the metropolis or suburban country seats, surrounded by shrubberies and flower gardens.” Again, “If the most fashionable parts of the capital could be placed before us, such as they then were, we should be disgusted by their squalid appearance, and poisoned by their noisome atmosphere. In Covent Garden a filthy and noisy market was held close to the dwellings of the great. Fruit women screamed, carters fought, cabbage stalks and rotten apples accumulated in heaps at the thresholds of the Countess of Berkshire and of the Bishop of Durham.”
Well, you will say, all this proves what a vast improvement we have achieved. Yes; but we must remember that Macaulay was writing on that side of the question. Are we not more self-indulgent, more fond of our flowers, villas, carriages, etc., than we need be; less hard working and industrious; more desirous of getting the means of indulgence by some short and ready way—by speculation, gambling, and shady, if not dishonest dealing—than our fathers were? I need not follow at further length Macaulay’s description of these earlier times—of the black rivulets roaring down Ludgate Hill, filled with the animal and vegetable filth from the stalls of butchers and greengrocers, profusely thrown to right and left upon the foot-passengers upon the narrow pavements; the garret windows opened and pails emptied upon the heads below; thieves prowling about the dark streets at night, amid constant rioting and drunkenness; the difficulties and discomforts of travelling, when the carriages stuck fast in the quagmires; the travellers attacked by highwaymen. He narrates how it took Prince George of Denmark, who visited Petworth in wet weather, six hours to go nine miles. Compare this to a journey in a first-class carriage or Pullman car upon the Midland Railway, and think of the luxuries demanded by the traveller on his journey if he is going to travel for more than two or three hours: the dinner, the coffee, the cigar, the newspaper and magazine, etc., etc.
There is a passage in the beginning of Tom Brown’s School Days in which the author ridicules the quantity of great coats, wrappers, and rugs which a modern schoolboy takes with him, though he is going to travel first class, with foot-warmers. Then, in our houses, what stoves and hot-water pipes and baths do we not require! How many soaps and powders, rough towels and soft towels! Sir Charles Napier, I think, said that all an officer wanted to take with him on a campaign was a towel, a tooth-brush, and a piece of yellow soap. The great excuse for the bath is that if it is warm it is cleansing; if it is cold, it is invigorating; but what shall we say to Turkish Baths? Surely there is more time wasted than enough, and, unless as a medical cure, it may become an idle habit. I have seen private Turkish Baths in private houses. What are we coming to? We used to be proud of our ordinary wash-hand basins, and make fun of the little saucers that we found provided for our ablutions upon the Continent. At the time of the great Exhibition of 1851 Punch had a picture of two very grimy Frenchmen regarding with wonder an ordinary English wash-stand. “Comment appelle-t’on cette machine là,” says one; to which the other replies, “Je ne sais pas, mais c’est drôle.” A great advance has been made in the furniture of our houses. We fill our rooms, especially our drawing-rooms or boudoirs, with endless arm-chairs and sofas of various shapes—all designed to give repose to the limbs; but I am sure they tend towards lazy habits, and very often interfere with work. Surely there has lately risen a custom of overdoing the embellishment and ornamentation of our houses. We fill our rooms too full of all sorts of knick-knacks, so much so that we can hardly move about for fear of upsetting something. “I have a fire [in my bedroom] all day,” writes Carlyle. “The bed seems to be about eight feet wide. Of my paces the room measures fifteen from end to end, forty-five feet long, height and width proportionate, with ancient, dead-looking portraits of queens, kings, Straffords and principalities, etc., really the uncomfortablest acme of luxurious comfort that any Diogenes was set into in these late years.” Thoreau’s furniture at Walden consisted of a bed, a table, a desk, three chairs, a looking-glass three inches in diameter, a pair of tongs, a kettle, a frying-pan, a wash-bowl, two knives and forks, three plates, one cup, one spoon, a jug for oil, a jug for molasses, and a japanned lamp. There were no ornaments. He writes, “I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, and I threw them out of the window in disgust.”
“Our cottage is quite large enough for us, though very small,” wrote Miss Wordsworth, “and we have made it neat and comfortable within doors; and it looks very nice on the outside, for though the roses and honeysuckle which we have planted against it are only of this year’s growth, yet it is covered all over with green leaves and scarlet flowers, for we have trained scarlet beans upon threads, which are not only exceedingly beautiful, but very useful, as their produce is immense. We have made a lodging room of the parlour below stairs, which has a stone floor, therefore we have covered it all over with matting. We sit in a room above stairs, and we have one lodging room with two single beds, a sort of lumber room, and a small, low, unceiled room, which I have papered with newspapers, and in which we have put a small bed. Our servant is an old woman of 60 years of age, whom we took partly out of charity.” Here Miss Wordsworth and her brother, the great poet, lived on the simplest fare and drank cold water, and hence issued those noble poems which more than any others teach us the higher life.
“Blush, grandeur, blush; proud courts, withdraw your blaze;
Ye little stars, hide your diminished rays.”
“I turned schoolmaster,” says Sydney Smith, “to educate my son, as I could not afford to send him to school. Mrs. Sydney turned schoolmistress to educate my girls as I could not afford a governess. I turned farmer as I could not let my land. A man servant was too expensive, so I caught up a little garden girl, made like a milestone, christened her Bunch, put a napkin in her hand, and made her my butler. The girls taught her to read, Mrs. Sydney to wait, and I undertook her morals. Bunch became the best butler in the country. I had little furniture, so I bought a cartload of deals; took a carpenter (who came to me for parish relief) called Jack Robinson, with a face like a full moon, into my service, established him in a barn, and said, ‘Jack, furnish my house.’ You see the result.”
Then what shall I say of the luxury of endless daily papers, leading articles, short paragraphs, reviews, illustrated papers,—are not these luxuries? Are they not inventions for making thought easy, or rather for the purpose of relieving us from the trouble of thinking for ourselves. May I also, without raising a religious controversy, observe that in religious worship we are prone to relieve ourselves from the trouble of deep and consecutive thought by surrounding our minds with a sort of mist of feeling and sentiment; by providing beautiful music, pictures, and ornaments, and so resting satisfied in a somewhat indolent feeling of goodness, and not troubling ourselves with too much effort of reason. A love of the beautiful undoubtedly tends to elevate and refine the mind, but the follies of the false love and the dangers of an inordinate love are numerous and deadly. It is absurd that a man should either be or pretend to be absolutely absorbed in the worship of a dado or a China tea cup so as to care for nothing else, and to be unable to do anything else but stare at it with his head on one side. With most people the whole thing is the mere affectation of affected people, who, if they were not affected in one way, would be so in another. Boswell was a very affected man. He says, “I remember it distressed me to think of going into another world where Shakespeare’s poetry did not exist; but a lady relieved me by saying, ‘The first thing you will meet in the other world will be an elegant copy of Shakespeare’s works presented to you.’” Boswell says he felt much comforted, but I suspect the lady was laughing at him. I like the “elegant copy” very much. It is certain that in this world there is a deal of rough work to be done, and I feel that, attractive and beautiful as so many things are, too much absorption of them has a weakening and enervating effect.
I have spoken of the luxuries of the table, of the house, of travel, and of a love of ease and beautiful surroundings. There are, however, some people who are very luxurious without caring much for any of these things. Their main desire appears to be to live a long time, and to preserve their youth and beauty to the last. For this purpose they surround themselves with comfort, they decline to see or hear of anything which they don’t like for fear it should make their hair grey and their faces wrinkled, and their whole talk is of ailments and German waters. Swift somewhere or other expresses his contempt for this sort of person. “A well preserved man is,” he says, “a man with no heart and who has done nothing all his life.” Old ruins look beautiful by reason of the rain and the wind, the heat of August and the frost of January, and I am sure I have often seen in men—aye, and in women too—far more beauty where the tempests have passed over the face and brow, than where the life has been more sheltered and less interesting.
But I must notice before I conclude this part of my subject one of the principal causes of a fatal indulgence in luxury, and that is a despairing sense of the futility of attempting to do anything worth doing, and of inability to strive against what is going on wrong. This is the meaning of that rather vulgar phrase, “Anything for a quiet life”; and this is the reason why with many people everything and everybody is always a “bore.” Here, too, is the secret of that suave, polished, soft-voiced manner so much affected nowadays by highly-educated young men, and that somewhat chilly reserve in which they wrap themselves up. “Pray don’t ask us to give an opinion, or show an interest, or discuss any serious view of things.”
“For not to desire or admire, if a man could learn it, were more
Than to walk all day, like the Sultan of old, in a garden of spice.”
“Let us surround ourselves with every luxury; let us cease to strive or fret; let us be elegant, refined, gentle, harmless, and, above all, undisturbed in mind and body.” “We have had enough of motion and of action we.” “Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil.” “Let us get through life the best way we can, and though there is not much that can delight us, let us achieve as much amelioration of our lot as is possible for us.”
These, then, are some of the forms which luxury takes in the present century, and these are some of the outcomes of an advanced, and still rapidly advancing, civilization. These, too, seem to be the invariable accompaniments of such an advance. A very similar picture of Rome in the days of Cicero and Cæsar is drawn by Mr. Froude in his Cæsar. He says: “With such vividness, with such transparent clearness, the age stands before us of Cato and Pompey, of Cicero and Julius Cæsar; the more distinctly because it was an age in so many ways the counterpart of our own, the blossoming period of the old civilization. It was an age of material progress and material civilization; an age of civil liberty and intellectual culture; an age of pamphlets and epigrams, of salons and of dinner parties, of sensational majorities and electoral corruption. The rich were extravagant, for life had ceased to have practical interest, except for its material pleasures; the occupation of the higher classes was to obtain money without labour, and to spend it in idle enjoyment. Patriotism survived on the lips, but patriotism meant the ascendancy of the party which would maintain the existing order of things, or would overthrow it for a more equal distribution of the good things, which alone were valued. Religion, once the foundation of the laws and rule of personal conduct, had subsided into opinion. The educated, in their hearts, disbelieved it. Temples were still built with increasing splendour; the established forms were scrupulously observed. Public men spoke conventionally of Providence, that they might throw on their opponents the odium of impiety; but of genuine belief that life had any serious meaning, there was none remaining beyond the circle of the silent, patient, ignorant multitude. The whole spiritual atmosphere was saturated with cant—cant moral, cant political, cant religious; an affectation of high principle which had ceased to touch the conduct and flowed on in an increasing volume of insincere and unreal speech. The truest thinkers were those who, like Lucretius, spoke frankly out their real convictions, declared that Providence was a dream, and that man and the world he lived in were material phenomena, generated by natural forces out of cosmic atoms, and into atoms to be again resolved.”
Next I am going, as I promised, to consider those indulgences which become luxuries by excessive use, and in this I shall be led also to consider the effects of luxury. It has become a very trite saying that riches do not bring happiness; and certainly luxury, which riches can command, does not bring content, which is the greatest of all pleasures. On the contrary, the moment the body or mind is over-indulged in any way, it immediately demands more of the same indulgence, and even in stronger doses. Who does not know that too much wine makes one desire more? Who, after reading a novel, does not feel a longing for another?
The rich and poor dog, as we all know, meet and discourse of these things in Burns’s poem—
“Frae morn to e’en it’s naught but toiling
At baking, roasting, frying, boiling,
An’, tho’ the gentry first are stechin,
Yet e’en the hall folk fill their pechan
With sauce, ragouts, and sic like trashtrie,
That’s little short of downright wastrie.
An’ what poor cot-folk pit their painch in
I own it’s past my comprehension.”
To which Luath replies—
“They’re maistly wonderful contented.”
Cæsar afterwards describes the weariness and ennui which pursue the luxurious—
“But human bodies are sic fools,
For all their colleges and schools,
That, when nae real ills perplex ’em,
They make enow themselves to vex ’em.
They loiter, lounging lank and lazy,
Though nothing ails them, yet uneasy.
Their days insipid, dull, and tasteless;
Their nights unquiet, lang, and restless,
An’ e’en their sports, their balls and races,
Their gallopin’ through public places,
There’s sic parade, sic pomp, an’ art,
The joy can scarcely reach the heart.”
After this description the two friends
“Rejoiced they were not men, but dogs.”
An Italian wit has defined man to be “an animal which troubles himself with things which don’t concern him”; and, when one thinks of the indefatigable way in which people pursue pleasure, all the while deriving no pleasure from it, one is filled with amazement. “Life would be very tolerable if it were not for its pleasures,” said Sir Cornewall Lewis, and I am satisfied that half the weariness of life comes from the vain attempts which are made to satisfy a jaded appetite.
There are many things which are not luxuries per se, but become so if indulged in to excess. Take, for instance, smoking and drinking. One pipe a day and one glass of wine a day are not luxuries, but a great many a day are luxuries. So lying in bed five minutes after you wake is not a luxury, but so lying for an hour is. The man who is fond precociously of stirring may be a spoon, but the man who lies in bed half the day is something worse. Then it must be remembered that a single indulgence in one luxury produces scarcely any effect on the mind or body, but a habit of indulging in that luxury has a great effect.
“The sins which practice burns into the blood,
And not the one dark hour which brings remorse
Will brand us after of whose fold we be.”
I am surely right in noticing that the rich man is said to have fared sumptuously every day, as though faring sumptuously might have no significance, but the constantly faring sumptuously was what had degraded and debased the man below the level of the beggar at his gate. I feel that to be luxurious occasionally is no bad thing, if we can keep our self-control, and return constantly to simple habits. There is something very natural in the prayer which a little child was overheard to make—“God, make me a good little girl, but”—after a pause—“naughty sometimes.” It is the habit of being naughty which is pernicious. Can anyone doubt that the man who, on the whole, leads a hardy and not over-indulgent life will be more capable of performing any duty which may devolve upon him than a man who “had but fed on the roses and lain in the lilies of life.”
Sydney Smith, in his sketches of Moral Philosophy, notices that habits of indulgence grow on us so much that we go through the act of indulgence without noticing it or feeling the pleasure of it; yet, if some accident occurs to rob us of our accustomed pleasure, we feel the want of it most keenly. Speaking of Hobbes, the philosopher, he says that he had twelve pipes of tobacco laid by him every night before he began to write. Without this luxury “he could have done nothing; all his speculations would have been at an end, and without his twelve pipes he might have been a friend to devotion or to freedom, which in the customary tenour of his thoughts he certainly was not.”
In Fielding’s Life of Jonathan Wild Mr. Wild plays at cards with the Count. “Such was the power of habit over the minds of these illustrious persons that Mr. Wild could not keep his hands out of the Count’s pockets though he knew they were empty, nor could the Count abstain from palming a card though he was well aware Mr. Wild had no money to pay him.”
If we are curious to know who is the most degraded and most wretched of human beings, look for the man who has practised a vice so long that he curses it and clings to it. Say everything for vice which you can say, magnify any pleasure as much as you please; but don’t believe you can keep it, don’t believe you have any secret for sending on quicker the sluggish blood and for refreshing the faded nerve.
There is no doubt that habits of luxury produce discontent, the more we have the more we want. The sin of covetousness is not (curiously enough) the sin of the poor, but of the rich. It is the rich man who covets Naboth’s vineyard. I knew an old lady who had a beautiful house facing Hyde Park, and lived by herself with a companion, and certainly had room enough and to spare. Her house was one of a row, and the next house being an end house projected, so that all the front rooms were about a foot longer than those of the old lady. “Ah,” she used to sigh, “he’s a dear good man, the old colonel, but I should like to have his house—please God to take him!” This showed a submission to the will of Providence, and a desire for the everlasting welfare of her neighbour which was truly edifying; but covetousness was at the root of it, and a longing to indulge herself.
The effect of habits of luxury upon the brute creation is easily seen. How dreadfully the harmless necessary cat deteriorates when it is over-fed and over-warmed. It may, for all I know, become more humane, but it becomes absolutely unfit to get its own living. What is more despicable than a lady’s lap-dog, grown fat and good for nothing, and only able to eat macaroons! Even worms, according to Darwin, when constantly fed on delicacies, become indolent and lose all their cunning.
I will note next that habits of self-indulgence render us careless of the misfortunes of others. Nero was fiddling when Rome was burning. And upon the other hand privations make us regardful of others. In Bulwer’s Parisians two luxurious bachelors in the siege of Paris, one of whom has just missed his favourite dog, sit down to a meagre repast, on what might be fowl or rabbit; and the master of the lost dog, after finishing his meal, says with a sigh, “Ah, poor Dido, how she would have enjoyed those bones!” Probably she would have done so, in case they had not been her own. Of course we all know Goldsmith’s Deserted Village, and that it is all about luxury. It is, however, very poetical poetry (if I may say so), and I don’t know that it gives much assistance to a sober, prosaic view of the subject like the present. “O Luxury, thou curst by heaven’s decree,” sounds very grand; but I have not the least idea what it means. The pictures drawn in the poem of simple rural pleasures, and of gaudy city delights, are very pleasing; and the moral drawn from it all, viz., that nations sunk in luxury are hastening to decay, may be true enough; but what strikes one most is that, if Goldsmith thought that England was hastening to decay when he wrote, what would he think if he were alive now.
Well then, if the pleasures of luxury bring nothing but pain and trouble in the pursuit of them, to what end do they lead?
“Behold what blessings wealth to life can lend,
And see what comfort it affords our end.
In the worst inn’s worst room, with mat half hung,
The floors of plaister, and the walls of dung;
On once a flock-bed, but repaired with straw,
With tape-ty’d curtains never meant to draw;
The George and Garter dangling from that bed,
Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red;—
Great Villers lies—alas, how changed from him,
That life of pleasure and that soul of whim.
Gallant and gay in Clieveden’s proud alcove,
The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love;
No wit to flatter, left of all his store;
No fool to laugh at, which he valued more;
There victor of his health, of fortune, friends,
And fame; this lord of useless thousands ends.”
If these be the effects of luxuries, why is it that we continue to strive to increase them with all our might? I have already insisted that I am not speaking of such things as are beneficial to body and soul, but such as are detrimental. But it will be said, you are spending money, and to gratify your longings labourers of different sorts have been employed, and the wealth of the world is thereby increased. But we must consider the loss to the man who is indulging himself, and therefore the loss to the community; and further, that his money might have gone in producing something necessary, and not noxious, something in its turn reproductive. In Boswell’s Life of Johnson is this passage, “Johnson as usual defended luxury. You cannot spend money in luxury without doing good to the poor. Nay, you do more good to them by spending it in luxury; you make them exert industry, whereas by giving it you keep them idle. I own indeed there may be more virtue in giving it immediately in charity, than in spending it in luxury.” He was then asked if this was not Mandeville’s doctrine of “private vices are public benefits.” Of course this did not suit him, and he demolished it. He said, “Mandeville puts the case of a man who gets drunk at an alehouse, and says it is a public benefit, because so much money is got by it to the public. But it must be considered that all the good gained by this through the gradation of alehouse-keeper, brewer, maltster, and farmer, is overbalanced by the evil caused to the man and his family by his getting drunk.”
Perhaps you will say, what is a man to do with his money, if he may not spend it in luxury? If, as Dr. Johnson says, and as we all of us find out occasionally, it is worse spent if given in charity, are we to hoard it? No, surely this is more contemptible still. “What is the use of all your money,” said one distinguished barrister to another, “you can’t live many more years, and you can’t take it with you when you go? Besides, if you could, it would all melt where you’re going.” This hoarding of wealth, this craving for it, is only another form of luxury, the luxury of growing rich. Some like to be thought rich, and called rich, and treated with a fawning respect on account of their riches; others love to hide their riches, but to hug their money in secret, and seem to enjoy the prospect of dying rich. I was engaged in a singular case some time ago, in which an old lady who had starved herself to death, and lived in the greatest squalor, had secreted £250 in a stocking under the mattress of her bed. It was stolen by one nephew, who was sued for it by another, and all the money went in law expenses. If then we are not to spend our money upon luxuries, and if we are not to hoard it, what are we to do with it if we have more than we can lay out in what is useful. I have not time (nor is the question a part of my subject) to discuss what should be done with the money hitherto spent in idle luxury. We know, however, that we have the poor always with us, and that we can always learn the luxury of doing good. In one way or another we ought to see that our superfluous wealth should drain from the high lands into the valleys; not indeed to make the poor luxurious, but to provide them with comfort, to give them health, strength, and enjoyment. I think then that if we are wise men, seeing that we are placed in a world of care, trouble, and hard work, from which no man can escape; and seeing that, upon the other hand, we are living in a country and in an age when we are surrounded with all that makes life pleasant and enjoyable, we shall endeavour to find out some mode of harmonizing these different chords. It need hardly be said how far removed luxury is from the spirit of Christianity, and from the life of its Founder; yet it may reverently be remembered that on more than one occasion He showed His tender regard for the weakness of human nature by stamping with His approval the pleasures of convivial festivity.
What then is the remedy against luxury? I would say shortly,—in work. A busy man has no time for luxury, and there is no reason why every man should not have enough to do, if he will only do it. And I am sure the same rule applies to the ladies, although a very busy man once wrote of his wife—
“In work, work, work, in work alway
My every day is past;
I very slowly make the coin—
She spends it very fast.”
But speaking seriously, I am sure that in some sort of work lies the antidote to luxury. When Orpheus sailed past the beautiful islands “lying in dark purple spheres of sea,” and heard the songs of the idle and luxurious syrens floating languidly over the waters, he drowned their singing in a pæan to the gods. Religion often affords a great incentive to work for the good of others; and, in working for others, we have neither the time, nor the inclination, to be over indulgent of ourselves. So, the desire to obtain fame and renown has often produced men of the austere and non-indulgent type, as the Duke of Wellington and many others:—
“Fame is the spur which the clear spirit doth raise,
That last infirmity of noble mind,
To scorn delights and live laborious days.”
Nay, even the desire to obtain riches, and the strife after them, will leave a man little room for luxury. To be honest, to be brave, to be kind and generous, to seek to know what is right, and to do it; to be loving and tender to others, and to care little for our comfort and ease, and even for our very lives, is perhaps to be somewhat old-fashioned and behind the age; but these are, after all, the things which distinguish us from the brute beasts which perish, and which justify our aspirations towards eternity.
A STORY.
THE READING PARTY.
CHAPTER I.—THE COACH.
Charles Porkington, M.A., sometime fellow of St. Swithin, was born of humble parents. He was educated, with a due regard for economy, in the mathematics by his father, and in the prevailing theology of the district by his mother. The village schoolmaster had also assisted in the completion of his education by teaching him a little bad Latin. He was ultimately sent to college, his parents inferring that he would make a success of the study of books, because he had always shown a singular inaptitude for anything else. At college he had read hard. The common sights and sounds of University life had been unheeded by him. They passed before his eyes, and they entered into his ears, but his mind refused to receive any impression from them. After taking a high degree, and being elected a fellow, he had written a novel of a strongly melodramatic cast, describing college life, and showing such an intimate acquaintance with the obscurer parts of it, that a great many ladies declared that “they always thought so;—it was just as they supposed.” The novel, however, did not meet with much success, and he then turned to the more lucrative but far less noble occupation of “coaching.” He could not be said to be absolutely unintellectual. As he had not profited by the experience of life, so he had not been contaminated by it. He was moral, chiefly in a negative sense, and was not inclined to irreligion. The faith of his parents sat, perhaps, uncomfortably upon him; and he had not sufficient strength of mind to adopt a new pattern. He was in short an amiable mathematician, and a feeble classic; and I think that is all that could be said of him with any certainty. There seemed to be an absence of character which might be called characteristic, and a feebleness of will so absolute as to disarm contempt.
A portion of Porkington’s hard earned gains was transmitted regularly to his two aged parents, while he himself, partly from habit and partly from indifference, lived as frugally as possible.
“Bless me!” cried Mrs. Porkington, within six months of her marriage, “To think that you should have squandered such large sums of money upon people who seem to have got on very well without them.”
“My dear,” replied he, “they are very poor, and in want of many comforts.”
“Of course I am sorry they cannot have them now,” retorted she, “and it is therefore a pity they ever should have had them.”
Porkington sighed slightly, but had already learned not to contend, if he could remember not to do so. Mrs. Porkington was of large stature and majestic carriage; and had moreover a voice sufficiently powerful to keep order in an Irish brigade, or to command a vessel in a storm without the assistance of a trumpet. Mr. Porkington, on the other hand, was a little, dry, pale, plain man, with an abstracted and nervous manner, and a voice that had never grown up so as to match even the little body from which it came, but was a sort of cracked treble whisper. Moreover, when Mrs. Porkington wished to speak her mind to her husband, she would recline upon a sofa in an impressive manner, and fix her eyes upon the ceiling. Mr. Porkington, on these occasions, would sit on the very edge of the most uncomfortable chair, his toes turned out, his hands embracing his knees, and his eyes tracing the patterns upon the carpet, as though with a view of studying some abstruse theory of curves. On which side the victory lay under these circumstances it is easy to guess.
Mrs. Porkington felt the advantage of her position and followed it up.
“I never, my dear, mention any subject to you, but you immediately fling your parents at me.”
Mr. Porkington would as soon have thought of throwing St. Paul’s Cathedral.
After a honeymoon spent in the Lake district the happy pair went to pay a visit to the parents of the bridegroom, and Porkington had so brightened and revived during his stay there, and had expressed himself so happy in their society, that Mrs. Porkington could not forgive him. In the company of his wife’s father, on the contrary, he relapsed into a state bordering upon coma; and no wonder, for that worthy retired tallow merchant was a perfect specimen of ponderous pomposity, and had absolutely nothing in common with the shy scholar who had become his son-in-law. Mr. Candlish had lost the great part of the money he had made by tallow, and by consequence had nothing to give his daughter; but she behaved herself as a woman should whose father might at one time have given her ten thousand pounds. “My papa, my dear, was worth at least £40,000 when he retired,” was the form in which Mrs. Porkington flung her surviving parent at the head of her husband, and crushed him flat with the missile. To the world at large she spoke of her father as “being at present a gentleman of moderate means.” Now, as a gentleman of moderate means cannot be expected to provide for a sister of no means at all; and as Mrs. Porkington, not having been blessed with children by her marriage, required a companion, her aunt tacked herself on to Mr. Porkington’s establishment, and became a permanent and substantial fixture. Fat, ugly, and spiteful when she dared, she became a thorn in the side of the poor tutor, and supported on all occasions the whims and squabbles of her niece. Whenever the “coach” evinced any tendency to travel too fast, Mrs. Porkington put the “drag” on, and the vehicle stopped.
Mr. and Mrs. Porkington had now been married three years; and, as the long vacation was at hand, it became necessary to arrange their plans for a “Reading Party.”
“If I might be allowed to suggest,” said Mrs. Porkington, reclining on her sofa, with her eyes fixed upon the ceiling, “I think a continental reading party would be the most beneficial to the young men. The air of the continent, I have always found (Mrs. Porkington had crossed the channel upon one occasion) is very invigorating; and, though I know you don’t speak French, my dear, yet you should avail yourself of every opportunity of acquiring it.”
“But, my love,” he replied, “we must consider. Many parents have an objection to the expense, and—”
“Oh, of course!” she interrupted, “if ever I venture, which I seldom do, to propose anything, there are fifty objections raised at once. Pray, may I ask to what uncomfortable quarter of the globe you propose to take me? Perhaps to the Gold Coast—or some other deadly spot—quite likely!”
“Well, my love,” said the Coach, “I thought of the Lakes.”
“Thought of the Lakes!” slowly repeated his wife. “Since I have had the honour of being allied with you in marriage, I believe you have never thought of anything else!”
There was some truth in this, and the tutor felt it. “Then, my dear,” said he mildly, “I really do not know where we should go.”
Thereupon his wife ran through the names of several likely places, to each of which she stated some clear and decided objection. Ultimately she mentioned Babbicombe as being a place she might be induced to regard with favour; the truth being that she had made up her mind from the first not to be taken anywhere else. “Babbicombe by all means let it be,” said he, “since you wish it.”
“I do not wish it at all,” she cried, “as you know quite well, my dear; and it is very hard that you should always try to make it appear that I wish to do a thing, when I have no desire at all upon the subject. Have you noticed, aunt, how invariably Charles endeavours to take an unfair advantage of anything I say, and tries to make out I wish a thing which he has himself proposed?”
The Drag said she had noticed it very often, and wondered at it very much. She thought it was very unfair indeed, and showed a domineering spirit very far from Christian in her opinion, though, of course, opinions might differ.
Porkington took a turn in his little back garden, and smoked a pipe, which seemed to console him somewhat; and, after a few more skirmishes, the coach, harness, drag, team and all arrived at Babbicombe.
CHAPTER II.—THE TEAM.
Let the man who disapproves of reading parties suggest something better. “Let the lads stop at home,” says one. Have you ever tried it? They soon become a bore to themselves and all around them. “Let them go by themselves, then, to some quiet seaside lodging or small farmhouse.” Suicide or the d---1. “Let them stop at the University for the Long.” The Dons won’t let them stop up, unless they are likely to take high degrees; and, even if the Dons would permit it, it would be too oppressively dull for the young men. “At all events, let reading parties be really reading parties.” Whoever said they should be anything else? For my part I know nothing in this life equal to reading parties. Do Jones and Brown, who are perched upon high stools in the city, ever dream of starting for the Lakes with a ledger each, to enter their accounts and add up the items by the margin of Derwentwater. Do Bagshaw and Tomkins, emerging from their dismal chambers in Pump Court, take their Smith’s Leading Cases, or their Archbold, to Shanklyn or Cowes? Do Sawyer and Allen study medicine in a villa on the Lake of Geneva? I take it, it is an invincible sign of the universality of the classics and mathematics that they will adapt themselves with equal ease to the dreariest of college rooms or to the most romantic scenery.
Harry Barton, Richard Glenville, Thomas Thornton, and I, made up Porkington’s Reading Party.
Harry Barton’s father was a Manchester cotton spinner of great wealth. Himself a man of no education, beyond such knowledge as he had picked up in the course of an arduous life, the cotton spinner was not oblivious to those advantages which ought to accrue to a liberal education; and he resolved that his son, a fine handsome lad, should not fail in life for want of them. Young Barton had, therefore, in due course been sent to Eton and Camford with a full purse, a vigorous constitution, a light heart, and a fair amount of cramming. At Camford he found himself in the midst of his old Eton chums, and plunged eagerly into all the animated life and excitement of the University. Boating, cricket, rackets, billiards, wine parties, betting—these formed the chief occupation of the two years which he had already passed at college. Reading, upon some days, formed an agreeable diversion from the monotony of the above-named more interesting studies. Porkington, however, who seldom placed a man wrong, still promised him a second class. Hearty, generous, a lover of ease and pleasure, good-natured and easily led, he was a general favourite; and in some respects deserved to be so.
Richard Glenville was the son of an orthodox low church parson, a fat vicar and canon, a man who, if he was not conformed to the world at large, was a mere reflection of the little world to which he belonged. His son Richard was a quick-sighted youth, clear and vigorous in intellect, not deep but acute. He was high church, because he had lived among the low church party. He was a Tory, because his surroundings were mostly Liberal. He was inclined to be profane, because his father’s friends bored him by their solemnity. He was flippant, because they were dull; careless, because they were cautious; and fast, because they were slow. He had an eye for the weak points of things. He delighted in what is called “chaff.” He affected to regard all things with indifference, and was tolerant of everything except what he was pleased to denounce as shams. Upon this point he would occasionally become very warm. If his sense of truth and honour were touched, he became goaded into passion; but most things appealed to him from their humorous side. He was tall, fair, and handsome, the features clean cut and the eyes grey. His manners were polished, and he was always well dressed. He was full of high spirits and good temper, and was a most agreeable companion to all to whom his satire did not render him uncomfortable. Strange to say, he stood very high in the favour of Mrs. Porkington, who, had she known what fun he made of her behind her back, would, I think, have sometimes forgotten that he was the nephew of a peer. He studied logic, classics, mathematics, moral philosophy indifferently, because he found that a certain amount of study conduced to a quiet life with the “governor.” He proposed ultimately, he said, to be called to the Bar, because that was equivalent to leaving your future career still enveloped in mystery for many years.
I do not know that I have very much to say about Thornton. He was a very estimable young man. I think he was the only one of the party who might say with a clear conscience that he did some work for his “coach.” He was not short, nor tall, nor good-looking, nor very rich, nor very poor. He was of plebeian origin. His father was a grocer. I am sure the young man had been well brought up at home, and had been well taught at school; and he was a brave, frank, honest fellow enough, but there was withal a certain common or commonplace way with him. He acquitted himself well at cricket and football; and I have no doubt he will succeed in life, and be most respectable, but on the whole very uninteresting.
The present writer is one of the most handsome, most amiable, and most witty of men; but if there is one vice more than another at which his soul revolts, it is the sin of egotism. Else the world would here have become the possessor of one of the most eloquent pages in literature. It is said that artists, who paint their own portraits, make a mere copy of their image in the looking glass. For my part, if I had to draw my own likeness, I would scorn such paltry devices. The true artist draws from the imagination. Let any man think for a moment what manner of man he is. Is he not at once struck with the fact that he is not as other men are—that he is not extortionate, nor unjust, and so forth? But, in truth, if I were to paint my own portrait, I know there are fifty fools who would think I meant it for themselves; and as I cannot tolerate vanity in other people, I will say no more about it.
So at length here at Babbicombe were the coach, harness, drag, and team duly arrived, and settled for six weeks or more, in a fine large house, far above the deep blue ocean, and far removed from all the turmoil and bustle of this busy world. Wonderful truly are the happiness and privileges of young men, if they only knew how to enjoy them wisely.
“I think it is somewhat unthoughtful, to say the least of it,” said Mrs. Porkington to Glenville, “that Mr. Porkington should have taken a house so very far from the beach. He knows how I adore the sea.”
“Perhaps he is jealous of it on that account,” said Glenville.
The Drag said she believed he would be jealous of anything. For her part if she were tied to such a man she would give him good cause to be jealous.
Glenville replied in his most polite manner that he was sure she could never be so cruel.
The Drag did not understand him.
“Confound the old aunt,” said he, as he sat down to the table in the dining-room to his mathematical papers, “why did she not stick to the tallow-chandling, instead of coming here? Don’t you think, Barton, our respected governors ought to pay less for our coaching on account of the drag? Of course we really pay something extra on her account; but, generally speaking, you know an irremovable nuisance would diminish the value of an estate, and I think a coach with an irremovable drag ought to fetch less than a coach without encumbrances.”
“I daresay you are right,” said Barton. “The two women will ruin Porky between them. The quantity of donkey chaises they require is something awful. To be sure the hill is rather steep in hot weather.”
“Yes,” said Glenville, “they began by trying one chaise between them, ride and tie; but Mrs. Porkington always would ride the first half of the way, and so Miss Candlish only rode the last quarter, until at last the first half grew to such enormous proportions that it caused a difference between the ladies, and Porkington had to allow two donkey chaises. How they do squabble, to be sure, about which of the two it really is who requires the chaise!”
“I can’t help thinking Socrates was a fool to want to be killed when he had done nothing to deserve it,” said Thornton, with a yawn, as he put down his book.
“Yes,” said Glenville, “nowadays a man expects to take his whack first—I mean to hit some man on the head, or stab some woman in the breast, first. Then he professes himself quite ready for the consequences, and poetic justice is satisfied.”
“How a man can put the square root of minus three eggs into a basket, and then give five to one person, and half the remainder and the square of the whole, divided by twelve, and so on, I never could understand; but perhaps the answer is wrong, I mean the square root of minus three.”
“Oh, if that is your answer, Barton,” said Glenville, “you are fairly floored. Take care you don’t get an answer of that sort—a facer, I mean—from the ‘pretty fisher maiden.’”
“Don’t chaff, Glenville,” cried Barton; “you are always talking some folly or other.”
“Well, well, let us have some beer and a pipe.
‘He, who would shine and petrify his tutor,
Should drink draught Allsopp from its native pewter.’
We shall all go to the dance to-night, I suppose—Thornton, of course, lured by the two Will-o-the-wisps in Miss Delamere’s black eyes.”
“Go, and order the beer, Dick,” said Thornton, “and come back a wiser, if not a sadder man.” Dick procured the beer; and, it being now twelve o’clock at noon, pipes were lit, and papers and books remained in abeyance, though not absolutely forgotten. At half-past twelve Mr. Porkington looked in timidly to see how work was progressing, to assist in the classics, and to disentangle the mathematics; but the liberal sciences were so besmothered with tobacco smoke and so bespattered with beer, that the poor little man did not even dare to come to their assistance; but coughed, and smiled, and said feebly that he would come again when the air was a little clearer.
“Upon my word, it is too bad,” said Barton. “Many fellows would not stand it. I declare I won’t smoke any more this morning.”
The rest followed the good example. Pipes were extinguished, and Glenville was deputed to go and tell the tutor that the room was clear of smoke. They were not wicked young men, but I don’t think their mothers and sisters were at all aware of that state of life into which a love of ease and very high spirits had called their sons and brothers.
CHAPTER III.—THE VISITORS.
Babbicombe was full. The lodgings were all taken. There were still bills in the windows of a few of the houses in the narrower streets of the little town announcing that the apartments had a “good sea view.” The disappointed visitor, however, upon further investigation, would discover that by standing on a chair in the attic it might be possible to obtain a glimpse of the topmasts of the schooners in the harbour, or the furthest circle of the distant ocean. Mr. and Mrs. Delamere, with their two daughters, occupied lodgings facing the sea. Next door but one were our friends, Colonel and Mrs. Bagshaw. Two Irish captains, O’Brien and Kelly, were stopping at the Bull Hotel, in the High Street. On the side of the hill in our row lived the two beautiful Misses Bankes with their parents and the younger olive branches, much snubbed by those who had “come out” into blossom. The visitors’ doctor also lived in our row, and a young landscape painter (charming, as they all are) had a room somewhere, but I never could quite make out where it was or how he lived.
“There are your friends the Delameres,” cried Glenville to Thornton, as we all lounged down one afternoon, not long after our arrival, to the parade, where the little discordant German band was playing. “Looking for you, too, I think,” added he.
“I am sure they are not looking at all,” said Thornton.
“Why, not now,” said Glenville; “their books have suddenly become interesting, but I vow I saw Mrs. Delamere’s spyglass turned full upon us a minute ago.” We all four stepped from the parade upon the rocks, and approached the Delameres’ party, who were seated on rugs and shawls spread upon the huge dry rocks overlooking the deep, clear water which lapped underneath with a gentle and regular plash and sucking sound. It was a brilliant day. Not a cloud was in the sky, and the blue-green seas lay basking in the sunshine. A brisk but gentle air had begun to crisp the top of the water, making it sparkle and bubble; and there was just visible a small silver cord of foam on the coast line of dark crags. A white sail or a brown, here and there, dotted about the space of ocean, gleamed in the light of the noon-day sun. Porpoises rolled and gamboled in the bay, and the round heads of two or three swimmers from the bathing cove appeared like corks upon the surface of the water. Half lost in the hazy horizon, a dim fairy island hung between sky and ocean; while overhead flew the milk-white birds, whose presence inland is said to presage stormy weather.
“What was Miss Delamere reading?”
“Oh, only Hallam’s Constitutional History.”
“Great Heavens!” whispered Glenville to me, “think of that!”
“Do you like it?” asked Thornton.
“Well, I can’t say I do, but I suppose I ought. My mother wanted me to bring it.”
“I think it must be very dull,” said Thornton, “though I have never tried it. I have just finished Kingsley’s Two Years Ago. It is awfully good. May I lend it to you?”
“Oh, I do so like a good novel when I can get it, but I am afraid I mayn’t.”
“What is that, Flo?” asked her mother. “You know I do not approve of novels, except, of course, Sir Walter’s. My daughters, Mr. Thornton, have, I hope, been brought up very differently from most young ladies. I always encourage them to read such works as are likely to tend to the improvement of their understanding and the cultivation of their taste. I always choose their books for them.”
“Nonsense, my dear,” said Mr. Delamere, “if Mr. Thornton recommends the book, Flo can have it. I know nothing of books, sir, and care less; but if you say it is a good book, that is sufficient.”
“Oh, quite so indeed,” exclaimed Mrs. Delamere, “if Mr. Thornton recommends the book. My daughter Florence has too much imagination, dear child, and we have to be very careful. May I inquire the name of the work which you recommend?”
She called everything a work.
“Oh, only Two Years Ago, by Kingsley,” said Thornton.
“Ah!” said Mrs. Delamere, “a delightful writer. The Rev. Charles Kingsley was a man whom I unfeignedly admire. Perhaps I might not altogether approve of his writings for young persons, but for those whose minds have been matured by a considerable acquaintance with our literature it is, of course, different. He is a bold and fearless thinker. He is not fettered and tied down by those barriers which impede the speculations of other writers.”
“Off she goes!” whispered Glenville to me, “broken her knees over the first metaphor. She will be plunging wildly in the ditch directly, and never fairly get out of it for about an hour and a half. Let us escape while we can.” We rose and left Mrs. Delamere explaining to Thornton how darling Florence and dearest Beatrix were all that a fond and intellectual mother could desire. She was anxious to be thought to be trembling on the verge of atheism, to which position her highly-gifted intelligence quite entitled her; while, at the same time, her strong judgment and moral virtues enabled her to assist in supporting the orthodox faith. The younger Miss Delamere (Beatrix) was doing one of those curious pieces of work in which ladies delight, which appear to be designed for no particular purpose, and which, curiously enough, are always either a little more or less than half finished. I think she very seldom spoke. She was positively crushed by that most superior person, her mother. Flo was gazing abstractedly into the sea, hearing her mother but not listening, while Thornton was seated a foot or two below her, gazing up into her deep-blue eyes, shaded by her large hat and dark hair, as happy and deluded as a lunatic who thinks himself monarch of the world.
The Squire said he would join us. I expect his wife rather bored the old gentleman. We all sauntered up to the little crush of people who were listening (or not listening) to the discordant sounds of the German band. Here we found the whole tribe of Bankes’ and the two Irish captains, one standing in front of each beautiful Miss Bankes; and a little further removed from this party were Colonel and Mrs. and Miss Bagshaw, with the doctor’s son. Above the cliff, on a slope of grass, lay the young artist, smoking his pipe and enjoying the scenery.
“I hope you intend to honour the Assembly Wooms with your pwesence this evening,” drawled Captain Kelly to the elder Miss Bankes—the dark one with the single curl hanging down her back. Her sister wore two light ones, and it puzzled us very much to account for the difference in number, and even in colour, for the complexions were the same. Was Glenville justified in surmising that the art of the contrivance was to prove that the curls were natural and indigenous, for if false, he said, surely they would be expected to wear two or one each.
“My sister and I certainly intend going this evening,” replied the young lady, “but really I hear they are very dull affairs.”
“They will be so no longer,” said he.
“Well, I suppose we must do something in this dreadful little place to keep up our spirits.”
“Yes, I must own it is very dull here, and I certainly should not have come had not a little bird told me at Mrs. Cameron’s dance who was coming here,” said the Captain, with a languishing air.
“I am sure I said nothing about it,” said Miss Bankes, poutingly.
“Beauty attracts like a magnet, Miss Bankes, and you must not be angry with a poor fellow for what can’t be helped.”
“Very well, now you are come, you must be very good, and keep us all amused.”
“I will endeavour to do my best,” said the gallant soldier.
“Bagshaw, come here!” shouted Mrs. Bagshaw right athwart the parade, startling several of the performers in the band, and drawing all eyes towards her. “Bagshaw, behave yourself like a gentleman. Don’t leave me, sir; I should be ashamed to let the people see me following that woman. It’s disgraceful, mean, and disgusting.”
Bagshaw came back, looking ridiculous. He hated to look ridiculous, as who does not? He approached his wife, and said in a low, but angry tone, “You are making a fool of yourself; the people will think you are mad; and they are not far wrong, as I have known to my cost this twenty years.”
Porkington, wife, and drag had just passed up the parade.
“I saw you, I tell you I saw you,” she went on excitedly. “You were sneaking away from my side—you know you were. Don’t laugh at me, Mr. Bagshaw, for I won’t have it. I don’t care who hears me,” she cried in a louder voice, “all the world shall hear how I am treated.”
“Look at Miss Bagshaw,” said the artist to me. “What a good girl she is! I am so sorry for her!” Pity is kin to love, thought I, as I watched the beautiful girl move swiftly up to her father and mother, and in a moment all three moved quietly away.
“Who’s the old girl?” asked Captain O’Brien of Captain Kelly.
“The celebwated Mrs. Bagshaw, wife of Colonel Bagshaw. She was a gweat singer or something not very long ago. Very wich, Tom; chance for you, you know; only daughter, rather a pwetty girl, not much style, father-in-law and mother-in-law not desiwable, devil of a wow, wampageous, both of them!”
“How much?” “Say twenty thou.” “Can’t be done at the pwice.” “Don’t know that—lunatic asylums—go abroad—that sort of thing—-young lady chawming!” “Ah!”
“What do you say to a row in the old four oar?” said Harry Barton. “With all my heart,” said I. “Let us make up a party. The Delameres will go, the two young ladies and Thornton. Don’t let’s have the mother, she jaws so confoundedly. Go and ask Mrs. Bagshaw and her daughter to make things proper.”
“All right! Thornton shall steer; you three; I stroke; Glenville two; Hawkstone bow, to look out ahead and see all safe.” And off he went to ask Mrs. Bagshaw, who was now all smiles and sunshine, and managed very cleverly to secure the two Misses Delamere and Thornton without the mamma. And so we all went down to the harbour, where we found Hawkstone looking out for our party as usual.
CHAPTER IV.—BOATING.
“Muscular Christianity is very great!” said the Archangel. “The devil it is!” said Satan, “see how I will deal with it!” In the days of Job he said, “Touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face”—
“But Satan now is wiser than of yore,
And tempts by making strong, not making poor.”
Muscular Christianity was at one time the cant phrase. Can we even now talk of Christian muscularity? For my part I think an Eton lad or a Camford man is a sight for gods and fishes. The glory of his neck-tie is terrible. He saith among the cricket balls, Ha, ha, and he smelleth the battle afar off, the thud of the oars and the shouting. I suppose the voice of the people is the voice of God; but let a thing once become fashionable and the devil steps in and leads the dance. When Lady Somebody, or Sir John Nobody, gives away the prizes at the county athletic sports, amid the ringing cheers of the surrounding ladies and gentlemen, I suspect the recipient, in nine times out of ten, is little better than an obtainer of goods by false pretences. When that ardent youth, Tommy Leapwell, brings home a magnificent silver goblet for the “high jump,” what a fuss is made of it and of him both at home and in the newspapers; whereas when that exemplary young student, Mugger, after a term’s hard labour, receives as a reward a volume of Macaulay’s Essays, in calf, price two and sixpence, very little is said about the matter; and, at all events, the dismal circumstance is not mentioned outside the family circle.
Nelly Crayshaw was talking saucily with Hawkstone as we came down to the quay. I noticed Barton shaking hands with her, and whispering a few words as we got into the boat; and I noticed also a certain sheepish, and rather sulky look upon Hawkstone’s face, as he did so; and if I was not mistaken, my learned friend Glenville let something very like an oath escape him as he shouted: “Barton, Barton, come along; we are all waiting for you!”
I do not think Nelly could be called a beauty. The face was too flat, the mouth was too large, and the colour of the cheeks was too brilliant. Yet she was very charming. The blue of her eyes underneath dark eyelashes and eyebrows was—well—heavenly. The whole face beamed and glowed through masses of brown hair, which were arranged in a somewhat disorderly manner, and yet with an evident eye to effect. The aspect was frank and good-humoured, though somewhat soft and sensuous; and the form, though full, was not without elegance, and showed both strength and agility. No one could pass by her without being arrested by her appearance, but we used to quarrel very much as to her claims to be called a “clipper,” or a “stunner,” or whatever was the word in use among us to express our ideal.
Barton jumped into the boat and away we went, Thornton steering, Mrs. Bagshaw, her daughter, and the Misses Delamere in the stern, Barton stroke, myself three, Glenville two, and Hawkstone bow—a very fine crew, let me tell you, for we all knew how to handle an oar,—especially in smooth water. And so we passed in front of the parade, waving our pocket handkerchiefs in answer to those which fluttered on the shore, and rowing away into the wide sea. Mrs. Bagshaw, who was an excellent musician, and her daughter, who had a lovely voice, sang duets and songs for our amusement; and, with the aid of the two Misses Delamere, made up some tolerable glees and choruses, in the latter of which we all joined at intervals, to the confusion of the whole effect,—of the singing in point of tune, and of the rowing in point of time.
As we were rounding Horn Point, Thornton said to Mrs. Bagshaw, “Do you know, there are some such splendid ferns grow in a little ravine you can see there on the side of that hill. Do let us land and get some.”
“What do you want ferns for?” asked I, innocently.
“Silence in the boat, three,” cried Glenville. “What a hard-hearted monster you must be!” he whispered in my ear.
“Oh, do let us land,” said Miss Delamere, “I do so want some common bracken”—or whatever it was, for she cared no more than you or I about the ferns—“I want some for my book, and mamma says we really must collect some rare specimens before we go home.” Mrs. Bagshaw guessed what sort of flower they would be looking for—heartsease, I suppose, or forget-me-not; but she very good-naturedly agreed to the proposal, and Hawkstone undertook to show us where we could land. We were soon ashore, and Hawkstone said, “You must not be long, gentlemen, if you please, for the wind is rising, and it will come on squally before long; and we have wind and tide against us going back, and a tough job it is often to round the lighthouse hill.”
“All right,” said Thornton, “how long can you give us?”
“Twenty minutes at the most,” said the boatman, “and you will only just have time to mount the cliff and come back.”
I heard an indistinct, dull murmur, half of the sea and half of the wind, and, looking far out to sea, could fancy I saw little white sheep on the waves. We left Glenville with Hawkstone talking and smoking. They were really great friends, although in such different ranks in life. Glenville used to rave about him as a true specimen of the old Devon rover. He was a tall, well-proportioned man, with a clear, open face, very ruddy with sun and wind and rough exercise, a very pleasant smile, and grey eyes, rather piercing and deep set. The brow was fine, and the features regular, though massive. The hair and beard were brown and rough-looking, but his manner was gentle, and had that peculiar courtesy which makes many a Devon man a gentleman and many a Devon lass a lady, let them be of ever so humble an origin.
Barton paired off with the younger Miss Delamere, Thornton with the elder. Mrs. Bagshaw and I followed, conversing cheerfully of many things. I found her a very entertaining and agreeable lady, accomplished, frank, and amiable. There was nothing at all peculiar either in her appearance or conversation. While I was talking to her I kept wondering whether her outbreaks of temper were the result of some real or supposed cause of jealousy, or were to be attributed solely to a chronic feeling of irritability against her husband. In the course of our walk together Mrs. Bagshaw said to me—
“Your friend, Mr. Thornton, is evidently very much smitten with Florence Delamere.”
“Yes, I think so,” I replied, “but I daresay nothing will come of it. Her family would not like it, I suppose; for, you know, they are of a good family in Norfolk, and Thornton is only the son of a grocer.”
“I did not know that,” she said, “but I have thought your friend had not quite the manners of the class to which the Delameres clearly belong. Mrs. Delamere is perhaps not anyone in particular, and she certainly talks overmuch upon subjects which probably she does not understand. The young ladies are most agreeable and lady-like, and I think Mr. Thornton has found that out. It is easy to see that objections to any engagement would be of the gravest sort—indeed, I imagine, insurmountable. It is most unfortunate that this should happen when the young man is away from his parents, who might guide him out of the difficulty. I think Mrs. Delamere is aware of the attachment, and is not inclined to favour it. Do you think you could influence your friend in any way? You will do him a great service if you can warn him of his danger; if he does not attend to you, you might tell Mr. Porkington, and consult with him.”
I promised to follow her advice as well as I could, for I felt that it was both kindly meant and reasonable, although I felt myself rather too young to be entangled in such matters.
* * * * *
“Oh what a lovely fern, such a nice little one too. Do try and dig it up for me,” said Florence.
“I will try to do my best,” said Thornton; “I have got a knife.” And down he went upon his knees, and soon extracted a little brittle bladder, which he handed to the young lady, saying, “I hope it will live. Do you think it will?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “I can keep it here till we go home, and then plant it in my rockery, where they flourish nicely, as it is beautifully sheltered from the sun.”
“I wish it were rather a handsomer-looking thing,” said the young man, looking rather ruefully at the little specimen.
“I shall prize it for the sake of the giver,” she said, with a slight blush. “But I am afraid you have spoilt your knife.”
“Oh, not at all. Do let me dig up some more.”
“No, thank you; do not trouble. See what a pretty bank of wild thyme.”
“Would you like to sit down upon it? You know it smells all the sweeter for being crushed.”
“Well, it does really look most inviting.” Florence sat down, saying as she did so, “How lovely the wild flowers are—heather and harebells.”
“Let me gather some for you.” He began plucking the flowers, which flourished in such profusion and variety that a nosegay grew in every foot of turf. “When do you think of leaving Babbicombe?”
“In two or three days.”
“So soon!”
“Yes; for papa has to go back to attend to his Quarter Sessions.”
“I am very, very sorry you are going. I had hoped you would stay much longer. These three weeks have flown like three days.”