Mr poor companions had but a sorry time of it on that morning. I was in a fearful temper, and made no effort to control it. The little romance of my meeting with these creatures was beginning to scale off, and, there beneath, lay the vulgar metal of their natures exposed to view. As for old Vaterchen, shuffling along in his tattered shoes, half-stupid with wine and shame together, I could n't bear to look at him; while Tintefleck, although at the outset abashed by my rebukeful tone and cold manner, had now rallied, and seemed well disposed to assert her own against all comers. Yes, there' was a palpable air of defiance about her, even to the way that she sang as she went along; every thrill and cadence seemed to say, “I 'm doing this to amuse myself; never imagine that I care whether you are pleased or not.” Indeed, she left me no means of avoiding this conclusion, since at every time that I turned on her a look of anger or displeasure, her reply was to sing the louder.
“And it was only yesterday,” thought I, “and I dreamed that I could be in love with this creature,—dreamed that I could replace Kate Herbert's image in my heart with that coarse travesty of woman's gentleness. Why, I might as well hope to make a gentleman of old Vaterchen, and present him to the world as a man of station and eminence.”
What an insane hope was this! As well might I shiver a fragment from a stone on the road-side, and think to give it value by having it set as a ring. The caprice of keeping them company for a day might be pardonable. It was the whim of one who is, above all, a student of mankind. But why continue the companionship? A little more of such intimacy, and who is to say what I may not imbibe of their habits and their natures; and Potts, the man of sentiment, the child of impulse, romance, and poetry, become a slave of the “Ring,” a saltimbanque! Now, though I could implicitly rely upon the rigidity of my joints to prevent the possibility of my ever displaying any feats of agility, I could yet picture myself in a long-tailed blue coat and jack-boots walking round and round in the sawdust circle, with four or five other creatures of the same sort, and who have no consciousness of any function till they are made the butt of some extempore drollery by the clown.
The creative temperament has this great disadvantage, that one cannot always build castles, but must occasionally construct hovels, and sometimes even dungeons and jails; and here was I now, with a large contract order for this species of edifice, and certainly £ set to work with a will. The impatience of my mind communicated itself to my gait, and I walked along at a tremendous rate.
“I can scarcely keep up with you at this pace,” said Tintefleck; “and see, we have left poor Vaterchen a long way behind.”
I made some rude answer,—I know not what,—and told her to come on.
“I will not leave him,” said she, coming to a halt, and standing in a composed and firm attitude before me.
“Then I will,” said I, angrily. “Farewell!” And waving my hand in a careless adieu, I walked briskly onward, not even turning a look on her as I went. I think, I'm almost certain, I heard a heavy sob close behind me, but I would not look round for worlds. I was in one of those moods—all weak men know them well—when a harsh or an ungracious act appears something very daring and courageous. The very pain my conduct gave myself, persuaded me that it must be heroic, just as a devotee is satisfied after a severe self-castigation.
“Yes, Potts,” said I, “you are doing the right thing here. A little more of such association as this, and you would be little better than themselves. Besides, and above all, you ought to be 'real.' Now, these are not real any more than the tinsel gems and tinfoil splendors they wear on their tunics.” It broke on me, too, like a sudden light, that to be the fictitious Potts, the many-sided, many-tinted,—what a German would call “der mitviele-farben bedeckte Potts,”—I ought to be immensely rich, all my changes of character requiring great resources and unlimited “properties” as stage folk call them; whereas, “der echte wahrhaf-tige Mann Potts” might be as poor as Lazarus. Indeed, the poorer the more real, since more natural.
While I thus speculated, I caught sight of a man scaling one of the precipitous paths by which the winding road was shortened for foot-travellers; a second glance showed me that this was Harpar, who, with a heavy knapsack, was toiling along. I made a great effort to come up with him, but when I reached the high road, he was still a long distance in front of me. I could not, if there had been any one to question me, say why I wished to overtake him. It was a sort of chase suggested simply by the object in front; a rare type, if we but knew it, of one half the pursuits we follow throughout life.
As I mounted the last of these bypaths which led to the crest of the mountain, I felt certain that, with a lighter equipment, I should come up with him; but scarcely had I gained the top, than I saw him striding away vigorously on the road fully a mile away beneath me. “He shall not beat me,” said I; and I increased my speed. It was all in vain. I could not do it; and when I drew nigh Lindau at last, very weary and footsore, the sun was just sinking on the western shore of the lake.
“Which is the best inn here?” asked I of a shopkeeper who was lounging carelessly at his door.
“Yonder,” said he, “where you see that post-carriage turning into.”
“To-night,” said I, “I will be guilty of an extravagance. I will treat myself to a good supper, and an honest glass of wine.” And on these hospitable thoughts intent I unslung my knapsack, and, throwing as much of distinction as I could into my manner, strolled into the public room.
So busied was the household in attending to the travellers who arrived “extra post,” that none condescended to notice me, till at last, as the tumult subsided, a venerable old waiter approached me, and said, in a half friendly, half rebukeful tone, “It is at the 'Swan' you ought to be, my friend, the next turning but two to the left hand, and you 'll see the blue lantern over the gateway.”
“I mean to remain where I am,” said I, imperiously, “and to remember your impertinence when I am about to pay my bill. Bring me the carte.”
I was overjoyed to see the confusion and shame of the old fellow. He saw at once the grievous error he had committed, and was so overwhelmed that he could not reply. Meanwhile, with all the painstaking accuracy of a practised gourmand, I was making a careful note of what I wished for supper.
“Are you not ashamed,” said I, rebukefully, “to have ortolans here, when you know in your heart they are swallows?”
He was so abject that he could only give a melancholy smile, as though to say, “Be merciful, and spare us!”
“Bohemian pheasant, too,—come, come, this is too bad! Be frank and confess; how often has that one speckled tail done duty on a capon of your own raising?”
“Gracious Herr!” muttered he, “do not crush us altogether.”
I don't think that he said this in actual words, but his terrified eyes and his shaking cheeks declared it.
“Never mind,” said I, encouragingly, “it will not hurt us to make a sparing meal occasionally; with the venison and steak, the fried salmon, the duck with olives, and the apricot tart, we will satisfy appetite, and persuade ourselves, if we can, that we have fared luxuriously.”
“And the wine, sir?” asked he.
“Ah, there we are difficult. No little Baden vintage, no small wine of the Bergstrasse, can impose upon us! Lieb-frauen-milch, or, if you can guarantee it, Marcobrunner will do; but, mind, no substitutes!”
He laid his hand over his heart and bowed low; and, as he moved away, I said to myself, “What a mesmerism there must be in real money, since, even with the mockery of it, I have made that creature a bond slave.” Brief as was the interval in preparing my meal, it was enough to allow me a very considerable share of reflection, and I found that, do what I would, a certain voice within would whisper, “Where are your fine resolutions now, Potts? Is this the life of reality that you had promised yourself? Are you not at the old work again? Are you not masquerading it once more? Don't you know well enough that all this pretension of yours is bad money, and that at the first ring of it on the counter you will be found out?”
“This you may rely on, gracious sir,” said the waiter, as he laid a bottle on the table beside me with a careful hand. “It is the orange seal;” and he then added, in a whisper, “taken from the Margrave's cellar in the revolution of '93, and every flask of it worth a province.”
“We shall see—we shall see,” said I, haughtily; “serve the soup!”
If I had been Belshazzar, I believe I should have eaten very heartily, and drunk my wine with a great relish, notwithstanding that drawn sword. I don't know how it is, but if I can only see the smallest bit of terra firma between myself and the edge of a precipice, I feel as though I had a whole vast prairie to range over. For the life of me I cannot realize anything that may, or may not, befall me remotely. “Blue are the hills far off,” says the adage; and on the converse of the maxim do I aver, that faint are all dangers that are distant. An immediate peril overwhelms me; but I could look forward to a shipwreck this day fortnight with a fortitude truly heroic.
“This is a nice old half-forgotten sort of place,” thought I, “a kind of vulgar Venice, water-washed, and muddy, and dreary, and do-nothing. I 'll stay here for a week or so; I 'll give myself up to the drowsy genius loci; I'll Germanize to the top of my bent; who is to say what metaphysical melancholy, dashed with a strange diabolic humor, may not come of constantly feeding on this heavy cookery, and eternally listening to their gurgling gutturals? I may come out a Wieland or a Herder, with a sprinkling of Henri Heine! Yes,” said I, “this is the true way to approach life; first of all develop your own faculties, and then mark how in their exercise you influence your fellow-men. Above all, however, cultivate your individuality, respect this the greatest of all the unities.”
“Ja, gnädiger Herr,” said the old waiter, as he tried to step away from my grasp, for, without knowing it, I had laid hold of him by the wrist while I addressed to him this speech. Desirous to re-establish my character for sanity, somewhat compromised by this incident, I said:
“Have you a money-changer in these parts? If so, let me have some silver for this English gold.” I put my hand in my pocket for my purse; not finding it, I tried another and another. I ransacked them all over again, patted myself, shook my coat, looked into my hat, and then, with a sudden flash of memory, I bethought me that I had left it with Catinka, and was actually without one sou in the world! I sat down, pale and almost fainting, and my arms fell powerless at my sides.
“I have lost my purse!” gasped I out, at length.
“Indeed!” said the old man, but with a tone of such palpable scorn that it actually sickened me.
“Yes,” said I, with all that force which is the peculiar prerogative of truth; “and in it all the money I possessed.”
“I have no doubt of it,” rejoined he, in the same dry tone as before.
“You have no doubt of what, old man? Or what do you mean by the supercilious quietness with which you assent to my misfortune? Send the landlord to me.”
“I will do more! I will send the police,” said he, as he shuffled out of the room.
I have met scores of men on my way through life who would not have felt the slightest embarrassment in such a situation as mine, fellows so accustomed to shipwreck, that the cry of “Breakers ahead!” or “Man the boats,” would have occasioned neither excitement nor trepidation. What stuff they are made of instead of nerves, muscles, and arteries, I cannot imagine, since, when the question is self-preservation, how can it possibly be more imminent than when not alone your animal existence is jeopardized, but the dearer and more precious life of fame and character is in peril?
For a moment I thought that though this besotted old fool of a waiter might suspect my probity the more clear-sighted intelligence of the landlord would at once recognize my honest nature, and with the confidence of a noble conviction say, “Don't tell me that the man yonder is a knave. I read him very differently. Tell me your story, sir.” And then I would tell it. It is not improbable that my speculation might have been verified had it not been that it was a landlady and not a landlord who swayed the destinies of the inn. Oh, what a wise invention of our ancestors was the Salique law! How justly they appreciated the unbridled rashness of the female nature in command! How well they understood the one-idea'd impetuosity with which they rush to wrong conclusions!
Until I listened to the Frau von Wintner, I imagined the German language somewhat weak in the matter of epithets. She undeceived me on this head, showing resources of abusive import that would have done credit to a Homeric hero. Having given me full ten minutes of a strong vocabulary, she then turned on the waiter, scornfully asking him if, at his time of life, he ought to have let himself be imposed upon by so palpable and undeniable a swindler as myself? She clearly showed that there was no extenuation of his fault, that rogue and vagabond had been written on my face, and inscribed in my manner; not to mention that I had followed the well-beaten track of all my fraternity in fraud, and ordered everything the most costly the house could command. In fact, so strenuously did she urge this point, and so eager did she seem about enforcing a belief in her statement, that I almost began to suspect she might suggest an anatomical examination of me to sustain her case. Had she been even less eloquent, the audience would still have been with her, for it is a curious but unquestionable fact that in all little visited localities the stranger is ungraciously regarded and ill looked on.
Whenever I attempted to interpose a word in my defence, I was overborne at once. Indeed, public opinion was so decidedly against me, that I felt very happy in thinking Lynch law was not a Teutonic institution. The room was now filled with retainers of the inn, strangers, town-folk, and police, and, to judge by the violence of their gestures and the loud tones of their voices, one would have pronounced me a criminal of the worst sort.
“But what is it that he has done? What's his offence?” I heard a voice say from the crowd, and I fancied his accent was that of a foreigner. A perfect inundation of vituperative accusation, however, now poured in, and I could gather no more. The turmoil and uproar rose and fell, and fell and rose again, till at last, my patience utterly exhausted, I burst out into a very violent attack on the uncivilized habits of a people who could thus conduct themselves to a man totally unconvicted of any offence.
“Well, well, don't give way to passion; don't let temper get the better of you,” said a fat, citizen-like man beside me. “The stranger there has just paid for what you have had, and all is settled.”
I thought I should have fainted as I heard these words. Indeed, until that instant, I had never brought home to my own mind the utter destitution of my state; but now, there. I stood, realizing to myself the condition of one of those we read of in our newspapers as having received five shillings from the poor-box, while D 490 is deputed to “make inquiries after him at his lodgings,” and learn particulars of his life and habits. I could have borne being sent to prison. I could have endured any amount of severity, so long as I revolted against its injustice; but the sense of being an object of actual charity crushed me utterly, and I could nearly have cried with vexation.
By degrees the crowd thinned off, and I found myself sit-, ting alone beside the table where I had dined, with the hateful old waiter, as though standing sentinel over me.
“Who is this person,” asked I, haughtily, “who, with an indelicate generosity, has presumed to interfere with the concerns of a stranger?”
“The gracious nobleman who paid for your dinner is now eating his own at No. 8,” said the old monster with a grin.
“I will call upon him when he has dined,” said I, transfixing the wretch with a look so stern, as to make rejoinder impossible; and then, throwing my plaid wrapper and my knapsack on a table near, I strolled out into the street.
Lindau is a picturesque old place, as it stands rising, as it were, out of the very waters of the Lake of Constance, and the great mountain of the Sentis, with its peak of six thousand feet high, is a fine object in the distance; while the gorge of the Upper Rhine offers many a grand effect of Alpine scenery, not the less striking when looked at with a setting sun, which made the foreground more massive and the hill tops golden; and yet I carried that in my heart which made the whole picture as dark and dreary as Poussin's Deluge. It was all very beautiful. There, was the snow-white summit, reflected in the still water of the lake; there, the rich wood, browned with autumn, and now tinted with a golden glory, richer again; there were the white-sailed boats, asleep on the calm surface, streaked with the variegated light of the clouds above, and it was peaceful as it was picturesque. But do what I could, I could not enjoy it, and all because I had lost my purse, just as if certain fragments of a yellow metal the more or the less, ought to obscure eyesight, lull the sense of hearing, and make a man's whole existence miserable. “And after all,” thought I, “Catinka will be here this evening, or to-morrow at furthest. Vater-chen was tired, and could not come on. It was I who left them; I, in my impatience and ill-humor. The old man doubtless knew nothing of the purse confided to the girl, nor is it at all needful that he should. They will certainly follow me, and why, for the mere inconvenience of an hour or two, should I persist in seeing the whole world so crape-covered and sad-looking? Surely this is not the philosophy my knowledge of life has taught me. I ought to know and feel that these daily accidents are but stones on the road one travels. They may, perchance, wound the foot or damage the shoe, but they rarely delay the journey, if the traveller be not faint-hearted and craven. I will treat the whole incident in a higher spirit. I will wait for their coming in that tranquil and assured condition of mind which is the ripe fruit of a real insight into mankind. Pitt said, after long years of experience, that there was more of good than of bad in human nature. Let it be the remark of some future biographer that Potts agreed with him.”
When I got back to the inn, I was somewhat puzzled what to do. It would have been impossible with any success to have resumed my former tone of command, and for the life of me I could not bring myself down to anything like entreaty. While I thus stood, uncertain how to act, the old waiter approached me, almost courteously, and said my room was ready for me when I wished it.
“I will first of all wait upon the traveller in No. 8,” said L
“He has retired for the night,” was the answer. “He seems in very delicate health, and the fatigue of the journey has overcome him.”
“To-morrow will do, then,” said I easily; and not venturing upon an inquiry as to the means by which my room was at my disposal, I took my candle and mounted the stairs.
As I lay down in my bed, I resolved I would take a calm survey of my past life: what I had done, what I had failed to do, what were the guiding principles which directed me, and whither they were likely to bear me. But scarcely had I administered to myself the preliminary oath to tell nothing but the truth, than I fell off sound asleep.
My first waking thought the next morning was to inquire if two persons had arrived in search of me—an elderly man and a young woman. I described them. None such had been seen. “They will have sought shelter in some of the humbler inns,” thought I; “I'll up and look after them.” I searched the town from end to end; I visited the meanest halting-places of the wayfarer; I inquired at the police bureaus—at the gate—but none had arrived who bore any resemblance to those I asked after. I was vexed—only vexed at first—but gradually I found myself growing distrustful. The suspicion that the ice is not strong enough for your weight, and then, close upon that, the shock of fear that strikes you when the loud crash of a fracture breaks on the ear, are mere symbols of what one suffers at the first glimmering of a betrayal. I repelled the thought with indignation; but certain thoughts there are which, when turned out, stand like sturdy duns at the gate, and will not be sent away. This was one of them. It followed me wherever I went, importunately begging for a hearing, and menacing me with sad consequences if I were obdurate enough to listen. “You are a simpleton, Potts, a weak, foolish, erring creature! and you select as the objects of your confidence those whose lives of accident present exactly as the most irresistible of all temptations to them—the Dupe! How they must have laughed—how they must yet be laughing at you! How that old drunken fox will chuckle over your simplicity, and the minx Tintefleck indulge herself in caricatures of your figure and face! I wonder how much of truth there was in that old fellow's story? Was he ever the syndic of his village, or was the whole narrative a mere fiction like—like—” I covered my face with my hands in shame as I muttered out, “like one of your own, Potts?”
I was very miserable, for I could no longer stand proudly forward as the prosecutor, but was obliged to steal ignominiously into the dock and take my place beside the other prisoners. What became of all my honest indignation as I bethought me, that I, of all men, could never arraign the counterfeit and the sham?
“Let them go, then,” cried I, “and prosper if they can; I will never pursue them. I will even try and remember what pleased and interested me in their fortunes, and, if it may be, forget that they have carried away my little all of wealth.”
A loud tramping of post-horses, and the cracking of whips, drew me to the window, and I saw beneath in the court-yard, a handsome travelling britschka getting ready for the road. Oh, how suggestive is a well cushioned calèche, with its many appliances of ease and luxury, its trim imperials, its scattered litter of wrappers and guide-books,—all little episodes of those who are to journey in it!
“Who are the happy souls about to travel thus enjoy-ably?” thought I, as I saw the waiter and the courier discussing the most convenient spot to deposit a small hamper with eatables for the road; and then I heard the landlady's voice call out:
“Take up the bill to No. 8.”
So, then, this was No. 8 who was fast getting ready to depart,—No. 8 who had interposed in my favor the evening before, and towards whom a night's rest and some reflection had modified my feelings and changed my sentiments very remarkably.
“Will you ask the gentleman at No. 8 if I may be permitted to speak with him?” said I to the man who took in the bill.
“He 'll scarcely see you now,—he's just going off.”
“Give the message as I speak it,” said I; and he disappeared.
There was a long interval before he issued forth again, and when he did so he was flurried and excited. Some overcharges had been taken off and some bad money in change to be replaced by honest coin, and it was evident that various little well-intended rogueries had not achieved their usual success.
“Go in, you 'll find him there,” said the waiter, insolently, as he went down to have the bill rectified.
I knocked, a full round voice cried, “Come in!” and I entered.
“Well, what next? Have you bethought you of anything more to charge me with?” cried a large full man, whose angry look and manner showed how he resented these cheatings.
I staggered back sick and faint, for the individual before me was Crofton, my kind host of long ago in Ireland, and from whose hospitable roof I had taken such an unceremonious departure.
“Who are you?” cried he, again. “I had hoped to have paid everything and everybody. Who are you?”
Wishing to retire unrecognized, I stammered out something very unintelligibly indeed about my gratitude, and my hope for a pleasant journey to him, retreating all the while towards the door.
“It's all very well to wish the traveller a pleasant journey,” said he, “but you innkeepers ought to bear in mind that no man's journey is rendered more agreeable by roguery. This house is somewhat dearer than the 'Clarendon' in London, or the 'Hôtel du Rhin' at Paris. Now, there might be, perhaps, some pretext to make a man pay smartly who travels post, and has two or three servants with him, but what excuse can you make for charging some poor devil of a foot traveller, taking his humble meal in the common room, and, naturally enough, of the commonest fare, for making him pay eight florins—eight florins and some kreutzers—for his dinner? Why, our dinner here for two people was handsomely paid at six florins a head, and yet you bring in a bill of eight florins against that poor wretch.”
I saw now that, what between the blinding effects of his indignation, and certain changes which time and the road had worked in my appearance, it was more than probable I should escape undetected, and so I affected to busy myself with some articles of his luggage that lay scattered about the room until I could manage to slip away.
“Touch nothing, my good fellow!” cried he, angrily; “send my own people here for these things. Let my courier come here—or my valet!”
This was too good an opportunity to be thrown away, and I made at once for the door; but at the same instant it was opened, and Mary Crofton stood before me. One glance showed me that I was discovered; and there I stood, speechless with shame and confusion. Rallying, however, after a moment, I whispered, “Don't betray me,” and tried to pass out Instead of minding my entreaty, she set her back to the door, and laughingly cried out to her brother,—
“Don't you know whom we have got here?”
“What do you mean?” exclaimed he.
“Cannot you recognize an old friend, notwithstanding all his efforts to cut us?”
“Why—what—surely it can't be—it's not possible—eh?” And by this time he had wheeled me round to the strong light of the window, and then, with a loud burst, he cried out, “Potts, by all that's ragged! Potts himself! Why, old fellow, what could you mean by wanting to escape us?” and he wrung my hand with a cordial shake that at once brought the blood back to my heart, while his sister completed my happiness by saying,—
“If you only knew all the schemes we have planned to catch you, you would certainly not have tried to avoid us.”
I made an effort to say something,—anything, in short,—but not a word would come. If I was overjoyed at the warmth of their greeting, I was no less overwhelmed with shame; and there I stood, looking very pitiably from one to the other, and almost wishing that I might faint outright and so finish my misery.
With a woman's fine tact, Mary Crofton seemed to read the meaning of my suffering, and, whispering one word in her brother's ear, she slipped away and left us alone together.
“Come,” said he, good-naturedly, as he drew his arm inside of mine, and led me up and down the room, “tell me all about it. How have you come here? What are you doing?”
I have not the faintest recollection of what I said. I know that I endeavored to take up my story from the day I had last seen him, but it must have proved a very strange and bungling narrative, from the questions which he was forced occasionally to put, in order to follow me out.
“Well,” said he, at last, “I will own to you that, after your abrupt departure, I was sorely puzzled what to make of you, and I might have remained longer in the same state of doubt, when a chance visit that I made to Dublin led me to Dycer's, and there, by a mere accident, I heard of you,—heard who you were, and where your father lived. I went at once and called upon him, my object being to learn if he had any tidings of you, and where you then were. I found him no better informed than myself. He showed me a few lines you had written on the morning you had left home, stating that you would probably be absent some days, and might be even weeks, but that since that date nothing had been heard of you. He seemed vexed and displeased, but not uneasy or apprehensive about your absence, and the same tone I observed in your college tutor, Dr. Tobin. He said, 'Potts will come back, sir, one of these days, and not a whit wiser than he went. His self-esteem is to his capacity in the reduplicate ratio of the inverse proportion of his ability, and he will be always a fool.' I wrote to various friends of ours travelling about the world, but none had met with you; and at last, when about to come abroad myself, I called again on your father, and found him just re-married.”
“Re-married!”
“Yes! he was lonely, he said, and wanted companionship, and so on; and all I could obtain from him was a note for a hundred pounds, and a promise that, if you came back within the year, you should share the business of his shop with him.”
“Never! never!” said I. “Potts maybe the fool they deem him, but there are instincts and promptings in his secret heart that they know nothing of. I will never go back. Go on.”
“I now come to my own story. I left Ireland a day or two after and came to England, where business detained me some weeks. My uncle had died and left me his heir,—not, indeed, so rich as I had expected, but very well off for a man who had passed his life on very moderate means. There were a few legacies to be paid, and one which he especially intrusted to me by a secret paper, in the hope that, by delicate and judicious management, I might be able to persuade the person in whose interest it was bequeathed to accept. It was, indeed, a task of no common difficulty, the legatee being the widow of a man who had, by my uncle's cruelty, been driven to destroy himself. It is a long story, which I cannot now enter upon; enough that I say it had been a trial of strength between two very vindictive unyielding men which should crush the other, and my uncle, being the richer,—and not from any other reason,—conquered.
“The victory was a very barren one. It imbittered every hour of his life after, and the only reparation in his power, he attempted on his death-bed, which was to settle an annuity on the family of the man he had ruined. I found out at once where they lived, and set about effecting this delicate charge. I will not linger over my failure; but it was complete. The family was in actual distress, but nothing would induce them to listen to the project of assistance; and, in fact, their indignation compelled me to retire from the attempt in despair. My sister did her utmost in the cause, but equally in vain, and we prepared to leave the place, much depressed and cast down by our failure. It was on the last evening of our stay at the inn of the little village, a townsman of the place, whom I had employed to aid my attempt by his personal influence with the family, asked to see me and speak with me in private.
“He appeared to labor under considerable agitation, and opened our interview by bespeaking my secrecy as to what he was about to communicate. It was to this purport: A friend of his own, engaged in the Baltic trade, had just declared to him that he had seen W., the person I allude to, alive and well, walking on the quay at Riga, that he traced him to his lodging; but, on inquiring for him the next day, he was not to be found, and it was then ascertained that he had left the city. W. was, it would seem, a man easily recognized, and the other declared that there could not be the slightest doubt of his identity. The question was a grave one how to act, since the assurance company with which his life was insured were actually engaged in discussing the propriety of some compromise by paying to the family a moiety of the policy, and a variety of points arose out of this contingency; for while it would have been a great cruelty to have conveyed hopes to the family that might by possibility not be realized, yet, on the other hand, to have induced them to adopt a course on the hypothesis of his death when they believed him still living, was almost as bad.
“I thought for a long while over the matter, and with my sister's counsel to aid me, I determined that we should come abroad and seek out this man, trusting that, if we found him, we could induce him to accept of the legacy which his family rejected. We obtained every clew we could think of to his detection. A perfect description of him, in voice, look, and manner; a copy of his portrait, and a specimen of his handwriting; and then we bethought ourselves of interesting you in the search. You were rambling about the world in that idle and desultory way in which any sort of a pursuit might be a boon,—as often in the by-paths as on the high-roads; you might chance to hit off this discovery in some remote spot, or, at all events, find some clew to it. In a word, we grew to believe that, with you to aid us, we should get to the bottom of this mystery; and now that by a lucky chance we have met you, our hopes are all the stronger.”
“You 'll think it strange,” said I, “but I already know something of this story; the man you allude to was Sir Samuel Whalley.”
“How on earth have you guessed that?”
“I came by the knowledge on a railroad journey, where my fellow-passengers talked over the event, and I subsequently travelled with Sir Samuel's daughter, who came abroad to fill the station of a companion to an elderly lady. She called herself Miss Herbert.”
“Exactly! The widow resumed her family name after W.'s suicide,—if it were a suicide.”
“How singular to think that you should have chanced upon this link of the chain! And do you know her?”
“Intimately; we were fellow-travellers for some days.”
“And where is she now?”
“She is, at this moment, at a villa on the Lake of Como, living with a Mrs. Keats, the sister of her Majesty's Envoy at Kalbbratonstadt.”
“You are marvellously accurate in this narrative, Potts,” said he, laughing; “the impression made on you by this young lady can scarcely have been a transient one.”
I suppose I grew very red,—I felt that I was much confused by this remark,—and I turned away to conceal my emotion. Crofton was too delicate to take any advantage of my distress, and merely added,—
“From having known her, you will naturally devote yourself with more ardor to serve her. May we then count upon your assistance in our project?”
“That you may,” said I. “From this hour I devote myself to it.”
Crofton at once proposed that I should order my luggage to be placed on his carriage, and start off with them; but I firmly opposed this plan. First of all, I had no luggage, and had no fancy to confess as much; secondly, I resolved to give at least one day for Vaterchen's arrival,—I'd have given a month rather than come down to the dreary thought of his being a knave, and Tintefleck a cheat! In fact, I felt that if I were to begin any new project in life with so slack an experience, that every step I took would be marked with distrust, and tarnished with suspicion. I therefore pretended to Crofton that I had given rendezvous to a friend at Lindau, and could not leave without waiting for him. I am not very sure that he believed me, but he was most careful in not dropping a word that might show incredulity; and once more we addressed ourselves to the grand project before us.
“Come in, Mary!” cried he, suddenly rising from his chair, and going to meet her. “Come in, and help us by your good counsel.”
It was not possible to receive me with more kindness than she showed. Had I been some old friend who came to meet them there by appointment, her manner could not have been more courteous nor more easy; and when she learned from her brother how warmly I had associated myself in this plan, she gave me one of her pleasantest smiles, and said,—
“I was not mistaken in you.”
With a great map of Europe before us on the table, we proceeded to plan a future line of operations. We agreed to take certain places, each of us, and to meet at certain others, to compare notes and report progress. We scarcely permitted ourselves to feel any great confidence of success, but we all concurred in the notion that some lucky hazard might do for us more than all our best-devised schemes could accomplish; and, at last, it was settled that, while they took Southern Germany and the Tyrol, I should ramble about through Savoy and Upper Italy, and our meeting-place be in Italy. The great railway centres, where Englishmen of every class and gradation were much employed, offered the best prospect of meeting with the object of our search, and these were precisely the sort of places such a man would be certain to resort to.
Our discussion lasted so long that the Croftons put off their journey till the following day, and we dined all together very happily, never wearied of talking over the plan before us, and each speculating as to what share of acute-ness he could contribute to the common stock of investigation. It was when Crofton left the room to search for the portrait of Whalley, that Mary sat down at my side, and said,—
“I have been thinking for some time over a project in which you can aid me greatly. My brother tells me that you are known to Miss Herbert. Now I want to write to her; I want to tell her that there is one who, belonging to a family from which hers has suffered heavily, desires to expiate so far, maybe, the great wrong, and, if she will permit it, to be her friend. While I can in a letter explain what I feel on this score, I am well aware how much aid it would afford me to have the personal corroboration of one who could say, 'She who writes this is not altogether unworthy of your affection; do not reject the offer she makes you, or, at least, reflect and think oyer it before you refuse it' Will you help me so far?”
My heart bounded with delight as I first listened to her plan; it was only a moment before that I remembered how difficult, if not impossible, it would be for me to approach Miss Herbert once more. How or in what character could I seek her? To appear before her in any feigned part would be, under the circumstances, ignoble and unworthy, and yet was I, out of any merely personal consideration, any regard for the poor creature Potts, to forego the interests, mayhap the whole happiness, of one so immeasurably better and worthier? Would not any amount of shame and exposure to myself be a cheap price for even a small quantity of benefit bestowed on her! What signified it that I was poor and ragged—unknown, unrecognized—if she were to be the gainer? Would not, in fact, the very sacrifice of self in the affair be ennobling and elevating to me, and would I not stand better in my own esteem for this one honest act, than I had ever done after any mock success or imaginary victory?
“I think I can guess why you hesitate,” cried she; “you fear that I will say something indiscreet,—something that would compromise you with Miss Herbert,—but you need not dread that; and, at all events, you shall read my letter.”
“Far from it,” said I; “my hesitation had a very different source. I was solely thinking whether, if you were aware of how I stood in my relations to Miss Herbert, you would have selected me as your advocate; and though it may pain me to make a full confession, you shall hear everything.”
With this I told her all,—all, from my first hour of meeting her at the railway station, to my last parting with her at Schaffhausen. I tried to make my narrative as grave and commonplace as might be, but, do what I would, the figure in which I was forced to present myself, overcame all her attempts at seriousness, and she laughed immoderately. If it had not been for this burst of merriment on her part, it is more than probable I might have brought down my history to the very moment of telling, and narrated every detail of my journey with Vaterchen and Tintefieck. I was, however, warned by these circumstances, and concluded in time to save myself from this new ridicule.
“From all that you have told me here,” said she, “I only see one thing,—which is, that you are deeply in love with this young lady.”
“No,” said I; “I was so once, I am not so any longer. My passion has fallen into the chronic stage, and I feel myself her friend,—only her friend.”
“Well, for the purpose I have in mind, this is all the better I want you, as I said, to place my letter in her hands, and, so far as possible, enforce its arguments,—that is, try and persuade her that to reject our offers on her behalf is to throw upon us a share of the great wrong our uncle worked, and make us, as it were, participators in the evil he did them. As for myself,” said she, boldly, “all the happiness that I might have derived from ample means is dashed with remembering what misery it has been attended with to that poor family. If you urge that one theme forcibly, you can scarcely fail with her.”
“And what are your intentions with regard to her?” asked I.
“They will take any shape she pleases. My brother would either enable her to return home, and, by persuading her mother to accept an annuity, live happily under her own roof; or she might, if the spirit of independence fires her,—she might yet use her influence over her mother and sister to regard our proposals more favorably; or she might come and live with us, and this I would prefer to all; but you must read my letter, and more than once too. You must possess yourself of all its details, and, if there be anything to which you object, there will be time enough still to change it.”
“Here he is,—here is the portrait of our lost sheep,” said Crofton, now entering with a miniature in his hand. It represented a bluff, bold, almost insolently bold man in full civic robes, the face not improbably catching an additional expression of vulgar pride from the fact that the likeness was taken in that culminating hour of greatness when he first took the chair as chief magistrate of his town.
“Not an over-pleasant sort of fellow to deal with, I should say,” remarked Crofton. “There are some stern lines here about the corners of the eyes, and certain very suspicious-looking indentations next the mouth.”
“His eye has no forgiveness in it,” said his sister.
“Well, one thing is clear enough, he ought to be easily recognized; that broad forehead, and those wide-spread nostrils and deeply divided chin, are very striking marks to guide one. I cannot give you this,” said Crofton to me, “but I 'll take care to send you an accurate copy of it at the first favorable moment; meanwhile, make yourself master of its details, and try if you cannot carry the resemblance in your memory.”
“Disabuse yourself, too,” said she, laughing, “of all this accessorial grandeur, and bear in mind that you 'll not find him dressed in ermine, or surrounded with a collar and badge. Not very like his daughter, I 'm sure,” whispered she in my ear, as I continued to gaze steadfastly at the portrait. “Can you trace any likeness?”
“Not the very faintest; she is beautiful,” said I, “and her whole expression is gentleness and delicacy.”
“Well, certainly,” said Crofton, shutting up the miniature, “these are not the distinguishing traits of our friend here, whom I should call a hard-natured, stern, obstinate fellow, with great self-reliance, and no great trust of others.”
“I was just thinking,” said I, “that were I to come up with such a man as this, what chance would my poor, frail, yielding temperament have, in influencing the rugged granite of his nature? He 'd terrify me at once.”
“Not when your object was a good and generous one,” said Miss Crofton. “You might well enough be afraid to confront such a man as this if your aim was to overreach and deceive him; but bear in mind the fable of the man who had the courage to take the thorn out of the lion's paw. The operation, we are told, was a painful one, and there might have been an instant in which the patient felt disposed to eat his doctor; but, with all these perils, strong in a good purpose, the surgeon persevered, and by his skill and his courage made the king of the beasts his fast friend for life. The lesson is worth remembering.”
I was still pondering over this apophthegm, when Crofton aroused me by pushing across the table a great heap of gold. “This is all yours, Potts,” said he; “and remember that as you are now my agent, travelling for the house of Crofton and Co., that you journey at my cost.”
Of course I would not listen to this proposal, and, although urged by Miss Crofton with all a woman's tact and delicacy, I persisted so firmly in my refusal, that they were obliged to yield. I now had a hundred pounds all my own; and though the sum be not a very splendid one, I remember some French writer—I 'm not sure it is not Jules Janin—saying, “Any man who can put his hand into his pocket and find five Napoleons there, is rich;” and he certainly supports his theory with considerable sophistry and cleverness, mainly depending on the assumption that any of the reasonable daily necessities of life, even in a luxurious point of view, are attainable with such means. Now, although a hundred pounds would not very long supply resources for such a life, yet, as I am not a Frenchman, nor living in Paris, still less had I habits or tastes of a costly kind, I might very well eke out three months pleasantly on this sum, and in these three months what might not happen? In a “hundred days” the great Napoleon crushed the whole might of the Austrian empire, and secured an emperor's daughter for his bride; and in another “hundred days” he made the tour of France, from Cannes to Rochefort, and lost an empire by the way! Wonderful things might then be compassed within three months.
“What are you saying about three months, Potts?” asked Crofton, for unwittingly I had uttered these words aloud.
“I was observing,” said I, “that in three months from this day, we should arrange to meet somewhere. Where shall we say?”
“Geneva is very central; shall we name Geneva?”
“Oh, on no account Let our rendezvous be in Italy Let us say Rome.”
“Rome be it, then,” cried Crofton. “Now for another point: let us have a wager as to who first discovers the object of our search. I 'll bet you twenty Napoleons, Potts, to ten,—for as we are two to one, so should the wager be.”
“I take you,” cried I, entering into his humor, “and I feel as certain of success as if I had your money in my hands.”
“Will you have another wager with me?” whispered Mary Crofton, as she came behind my chair. “It is, that you 'll not persuade Miss Herbert to wear this ring for my sake.”
“I 'll bet my life on it,” said I, taking the opal ring she drew from her finger, as she spoke; “I'm in that mood of confidence now, I feel there is nothing I could not promise.”
“If so, then, Potts, let me have the benefit of this fortunate interval, and ask you to promise me one thing, which is, not to change your mind more than twice a day; don't be angry with me, but hear me out. You are a good-hearted fellow, and have excellent intentions; I don't think I know one less really selfish, but, at the same time, you are so fickle of purpose, so undecided in action, that I 'd not be the least astonished to hear, when we asked for you to-morrow at breakfast time, that you had started for a tour in Norway, or on a voyage to the Southern Pacific.”
“And is this your judgment of me also, Miss Crofton?” said I, rising from my seat.
“Oh, no, Mr. Potts. I would only suspect you of going off into the Tyrol, or the Styrian Alps, and forgetting all about us, amidst the glaciers and the cataracts.”
“I wish you a good-night, and a better opinion of your humble servant,” said I, bowing.
“Don't go, Potts—wait a minute—come back. I have something to tell you.”
I closed the door behind me, and hastened off, not, however, perfectly clear whether I was the injured man, or one who had just achieved a great outrage.