I am obliged to acknowledge that I was vainglorious enough to accept a seat in the Crofton carriage on the morning of their departure, and accompany them for a mile or so of the way,—even at the price of returning on foot,—just that I might show myself to the landlady and that odious old waiter in a position of eminence, and make them do a bitter penance for the insults they had heaped on an illustrious stranger. It was a poor and paltry triumph, and over very contemptible adversaries, but I could not refuse it to myself. Crofton, too, contributed largely to the success of my little scheme, by insisting that I should take the place beside his sister, while he sat with his back to the horses; and though I refused at first, I acceded at last, with the bland compliance of a man who feels himself once more in his accustomed station.
As throughout this true history I have candidly revealed the inmost traits of my nature—well knowing the while how deteriorating such innate anatomy must prove—I have ever felt that he who has small claims to interest by the events of his life, can make some compensation to the world by an honest exposure of his motives, his weaknesses, and his struggles. Now, my present confession is made in this spirit, and is not absolutely without its moral, for, as the adage tells us, “Look after the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves;” so would I say, Guard yourself carefully against petty vices. You and I, most esteemed reader, are—I trust fervently—little likely to be arraigned on a capital charge. I hope sincerely that transportable felonies, and even misdemeanors, may not picture among the accidents of our life; such-like are the pounds that take care of themselves, but the “small pence” which require looking after, are little envies and jealousies and rancors, petty snobberies of display, small exhibitions of our being better than this man or greater than that; these, I repeat to you, accumulate on a man's nature just the way barnacles fasten on a ship's bottom,—from mere time, and it is wonderful what damage can come of such paltry obstacles.
I very much doubt if a Roman conqueror regarded the chained captive who followed his chariot with a more supreme pride than I bestowed upon that miserable old waiter who now bowed himself to the ground before me, and when I ordered my dinner for four o'clock, and said that probably I might have a friend to dine with me, his humiliation was complete.
“I wish I knew the secret of your staying here,” said Mary Crofton, as we drove along; “why will you not tell it?”
“Perhaps it might prove indiscreet, Mary; our friend Potts may have become a mauvais sujet since we have seen him last?”
I wrapped myself in a mysterious silence, and only smiled.
“Lindau, of all places, to stop at!” resumed she, pettishly. “There is nothing remarkable in the scenery, no art treasures, nothing socially agreeable; what can it possibly be that detains you in such a place?”
“My dear Mary,” said Crofton, “you are, without knowing it, violating a hallowed principle; you are no less than leading into temptation. Look at poor Potts there, and you will see that, while he knows in his inmost heart the secret which detains him here is some passing and insignificant circumstance unworthy of mention, you have, by imparting to it a certain importance, suggested to his mind the necessity of a story; give him now but five minutes to collect himself, and I'll engage that he will 'come out' with a romantic incident that would never have seen the light but for a woman's curiosity.”
“Good heavens!” thought I, “can this be a true interpretation of my character? Am I the weak and impressionable creature this would bespeak me?” I must have blushed deeply at my own reflection, for Crofton quickly added,—
“Don't get angry with me, Potts, any more than you would with a friend who 'd say, 'Take care how you pass over that bridge, I know it is rotten and must give way.'”
“Let me answer you,” said I, courageously, for I was acutely hurt to be thus arraigned before another. “It is more than likely that you, with your active habits and stirring notions of life, would lean very heavily on him who, neither wanting riches nor honors, would adopt some simple sort of dreamy existence, and think that the green alleys of the beech wood, or the little path beside the river, pleasanter sauntering than the gilded antechamber of a palace; and just as likely is it that you would take him roundly to task about wasted opportunities, misapplied talents, and stigmatize as inglorious indolence what might as possibly be called a contented humility. Now, I would ask you, why should one man be the measure of another? The load you could carry with ease might serve to crush me, and yet there may be some light burdens that would suit my strength, and in bearing which I might taste a sense of duty grateful as your own.”
“I have no patience with you,” began Crofton, warmly; but his sister stopped him with an imploring look, and then, turning to me, said,—
“Edward fancies that every one can be as energetic and active as himself, and occasionally forgets what you have just so well remarked as to the relative capacities of different people.”
“I want him to do something, to be something besides a dreamer!” burst he in, almost angrily.
“Well, then,” said I, “you shall see me begin this moment, tor I will get down here and walk briskly back to the town.” I called to the postilions to pull up at the same time, and in spite of remonstrances, entreaties,—almost beseeching from Mary Crofton,—I persisted in my resolve, and bade them farewell.
Crofton was so much hurt that he could scarcely speak, and when he gave me his hand it was in the coldest of manners.
“But you 'll keep our rendezvous, won't you!” said Mary; “we shall meet at Rome.”
“I really wonder, Mary, how you can force our acquaintanceship where it is so palpably declined. Good-bye,—farewell,” said he to me.
“Good-bye,” said I, with a gulp that almost choked me; and away drove the carriage, leaving me standing in the train of dust it had raised. Every crack of the postboys' whips gave me a shock as though I had felt the thong on my own shoulders; and, at last, as sweeping round a turn of the road the carriage disappeared from view, such was the sense of utter desolation that came over me, that I sat down on a stone by the wayside, overwhelmed. I do not know if I ever felt such an utter sense of destitution as at that moment. “What a wealth of friends must a man possess,” thought I, “who can afford to squander them in this fashion! How could I have repelled the counsels that kindness alone could have prompted? Surely Crofton must know far more of life than I did?” From this I went on to inquire why it was that the world showed itself so unforgiving to idleness in men of small fortune, since, if no burden to the community, they ought to be as free as their richer brethren. It was a puzzling theme, and though I revolved it long, I made but little of it; the only solution that occurred to me was, that the idleness of the humble man is not relieved by the splendors and luxuries which surround a rich man's leisure, and that the world resents the pretensions of ease unassociated with riches. In what a profound philosophy was it, then, that Diogenes rolled his tub about the streets! There was a mock purpose about it, that must have flattered his fellow-citizens. I feel assured that a great deal of the butterfly-hunting and beetle-gathering that we see around us is done in this spirit They are a set of idle folk anxious to indulge their indolence without reproach.
Thus pondering and musing, I strolled back to the town. So still and silent was it, so free from all movement of traffic or business, that I was actually in the very centre of it without knowing it. There were streets without passengers, and shops without customers, and even cafés without guests, and I wondered within myself why people should thus congregate to do nothing, and I rambled on from street to alley, and from alley to lane, never chancing upon one who had anything in hand. At last I gained the side of the lake, along which a little quay ran for some distance, ending in a sort of terraced walk, now grass-grown and neglected. There were at least the charms of fresh air and scenery here, though the worthy citizen seemed to hold them cheaply, and I rambled along to the end, where, by a broad flight of steps, the terrace communicated with the lake; a spot, doubtless, where, once on a time, the burghers took the water and went out a-pleasuring with fat fraus and fräuleins. I had reached the end, and was about to turn back again, when I caught sight of a man, seated on one of the lower steps, employed in watching two little toy ships which he had just launched. Now, this seemed to me the very climax of indolence, and I sat myself down on the parapet to observe him. His proceedings were indeed of the strangest, for as there was no wind to fill the sails and his vessels lay still and becalmed, he appeared to have bethought him of another mode to impart interest to him. He weighted one of them with little stones till he brought her gunwale level with the water, and then pressing her gently with his hand, he made her sink slowly down to the bottom. I 'm not quite certain whether I laughed outright, or that some exclamation escaped me as I looked, but some noise I must unquestionably have made, for he started and turned up his head, and I saw Harpar the Englishman whom I had met the day before at Constance.
“Well, you 're not much the wiser after all,” said he, gruffly, and without even saluting me.
There was in the words, and fierce expression of his face, something that made me suspect him of insanity, and I would willingly have retired without reply had he not risen and approached me.
“Eh,” repeated he, with a sneer, “ain't I right? You can make nothing of it?”
“I really don't understand you!” said I. “I came down here by the merest accident, and never was more astonished than to see you.”
“Oh, of course; I am well used to that sort of thing,” went he on in the same tone of scoff. “I 've had some experience of these kinds of accidents before; but, as I said, it's no use, you 're not within one thousand miles of it, no, nor any man in Europe.”
It was quite clear to me now that he was mad, and my only care was to get speedily rid of him.
“I 'm not surprised,” said I, with an assumed ease,—“I'm not surprised at your having taken to so simple an amusement, for really in a place so dull as this any mode of passing the time would be welcome.”
“Simple enough when you know it,” said he, with a peculiar look.
“You arrived last night, I suppose?” said I, eager to get conversation into some pleasanter channel.
“Yes, I got here very late. I had the misfortune to sprain my ankle, and this detained me a long time on the way, and may keep me for a couple of days more.”
I learned where he was stopping in the town, and seeing with what pain and difficulty he moved, I offered him my aid to assist him on his way.
“Well, I 'll not refuse your help,” said he, dryly; “but Just go along yonder, about five-and-twenty or thirty yards, and I'll join you. You understand me, I suppose?”
Now, I really did not understand him, except to believe him perfectly insane, and suggest to me the notion of profiting by his lameness to make my escape with all speed. I conclude some generous promptings opposed this course, for I obeyed his injunctions to the very letter, and waited till he came up to me. He did so very slowly, and evidently in much suffering, assisted by a stick in one hand, while he carried his two little boats in the other.
“Shall I take charge of these for you?” said I, offering to carry them.
“No, don't trouble yourself,” said he in the same rude tone. “Nobody touches these but myself.”
I now gave him my arm, and we moved slowly along.
“What has become of the vagabonds? Are they here with you?” asked he, abruptly.
“I parted with them yesterday,” said I, shortly, and not wishing to enter into further explanations.
“And you did wisely,” rejoined he, with a serious air. “Even when these sort of creatures have nothing very bad about them, they are bad company, out of the haphazard chance way they gain a livelihood. If you reduce life to a game, you must yourself become a gambler. Now, there's one feature of that sort of existence intolerable to an honest man; it is, that to win himself, some one else must lose. Do you understand me?”
“I do, and am much struck by what you say.”
“In that case,” said he, with a nudge of his elbow against my side,—“in that case you might as well have not come down to watch me?—eh?”
I protested stoutly against this mistake, but I could plainly perceive with very little success.
“Let it be, let it be,” said he, with a shake of the head. “As I said before, if you saw the thing done before your eyes you 'd make nothing of it. I 'm not afraid of you, or all the men in Europe! There now, there's a challenge to the whole of ye! Sit down every man of ye, with the problem before ye, and see what you 'll make of it.”
“Ah,” thought I, “this is madness. Here is a poor monomaniac led away into the land of wild thoughts and fancies by one dominating caprice; who knows whether out of the realm of this delusion he may not be a man acute and sensible.”
“No, no,” muttered he, half aloud; “there are, maybe, half a million of men this moment manufacturing steam-engines; but it took one head, just one head, to set them all working, and if it was n't for old Watt, the world at this day would n't be five miles in advance of what it was a century back. I see,” added he, after a moment, “you don't take much interest in these sort of things. Your line of parts is the walking gentleman, eh? Well, bear in mind it don't pay; no, sir, it don't pay! Here, this is my way; my lodging is down this lane. I'll not ask you to come further; thank you for your help, and good-bye.”
“Let us not part here; come up to the inn and dine with me,” said I, affecting his own blunt and abrupt manner.
“Why should I dine with you?” asked he, roughly.
“I can't exactly say,” stammered I, “except out of good-fellowship, just as, for instance, I accepted your invitation t' other morning to breakfast.”
“Ah, yes, to be sure, so you did. Well, I 'll come. We shall be all alone, I suppose?”
“Quite alone.”
“All right, for I have no coat but this one;” and he looked down at the coarse sleeve as he spoke, with a strange and sad smile, and then waving his band in token of farewell, he said, “I 'll join you in half an hour,” and disappeared up the lane.
I have already owned that I did not like this man; he had a certain short abrupt way that repelled me at every moment. When he differed in opinion with me, he was not satisfied to record his dissent, but he must set about demolishing my conviction, and this sort of intolerance pervaded all he said. There was, too, that business-like practical tone about him that jars fearfully on the sensitive fibre of the idler's nature.
It was exactly in proportion as his society was distasteful to me, that I felt a species of pride in associating with him, as though to say, “I am not one of those who must be fawned on and flattered. I am of a healthier and manlier stamp; I can afford to hear my judgments arraigned, and my opinions opposed.” And in this humor I ascended the stairs of the hotel, and entered the room where our table was already laid out.
To compensate, as far as they could, for the rude reception of the day before, they had given me now the “grand apartment” of the inn, which, by a long balcony, looked over the lake, and that fine mountain range that leads to the Splugen pass. A beautiful bouquet of fresh flowers ornamented the centre of the small dinner-table, tastily decked with Bohemian glass, and napkins with lace borders. I rather liked this little display of elegance. It was a sort of ally on my side against the utilitarian plainness of my guest. As I walked up and down the room, awaiting his arrival, I could not help a sigh, and a very deep one too, over the thought of what had been my enjoyment that moment if my guest had been one of a different temperament,—a man willing to take me on my own showing, and ready to accept any version I should like to give of myself. How gracefully, how charmingly I could have played the host to such a man! What vigor would it have imparted to my imagination, what brilliancy to my fancy! With what a princely grace might I have dispensed my hospitalities, as though such occasions were the daily habit of my life; whereas a dinner with Harpar would be nothing more or less than an airing with a “Slave in the chariot,”—a perpetual reminder, like the face of a poor relation, that my lot was cast in an humble sphere, and it was no use trying to disguise it.
“What's all this for?” said Harpar's harsh voice, as he entered the room. “Why did n't you order our mutton-chop below stairs in the common room, and not a banquet in this fashion? You must be well aware I could n't do this sort of thing by you. Why, then, have you attempted it with me?”
“I have always thought it was a host's prerogative,” said I, meekly, “to be the arbiter of his own entertainment.”
“So it might where he is the arbiter of his purse; but you know well enough neither you nor I have any pretension to these costly ways, and they have this disadvantage, that they make all intercourse stilted and unnatural. If you and I had to sit down to table, dressed in court suits, with wigs and bags, ain't it likely we'd be easy and cordial together? Well, this is precisely the same.”
“I am really sorry,” said I, with a forced appearance of courtesy, “to have incurred so severe a lesson, but you must allow me this one trangression before I begin to profit by it.” And so saying, I rang the bell and ordered dinner.
Harpar made no reply, but walked the room, with his hands deep in his pockets, humming a tune to himself as he went.
At last we sat down to table; everything was excellent and admirably served, but we ate on in silence, not a syllable exchanged between us. As the dessert appeared, I tried to open conversation. I affected to seem easy and unconcerned, but the cold half-stern look of my companion repelled all attempts, and I sat very sad and much discouraged, sipping my wine.
“May I order some brandy-and-water? I like it better than these French wines,” asked he, abruptly; and as I arose to ring for it, he added, “and you 'll not object to me having a pipe of strong Cavendish?” And therewith he produced a leather bag and a very much smoked meerschaum, short and ungainly as his own figure. As he thrust his hand into the pouch, a small boat, about the size of a lady's thimble, rolled out from amidst the tobacco; he quickly took it and placed it in his waistcoat pocket,—the act being done with a sort of hurry that with a man of less self-possession might have perhaps evinced confusion.
“You fancy you 've seen something, don't you?” said he, with a defiant laugh. “I 'd wager a five-pound note, if I had one, that you think at this moment you have made a great discovery. Well, there it is, make much of it!”
As he spoke, he produced the little boat, and laid it down before me. I own that this speech and the act convinced me that he was insane; I was aware that intense suspectfulness is the great characteristic of madness, and everything tended to show that he was deranged.
Rather to conceal what was passing in my own mind than out of curiosity, I took up the little toy to examine it. It was beautifully made, and finished with a most perfect neatness; the only thing I could not understand being four small holes on each side of the keel, fastened by four little plugs.
“What are these for?” asked I.
“Can't you guess?” said he, laughingly.
“No; I have never seen such before.”
“Well,” said he, musingly, “perhaps they are puzzling,—I suppose they are. But mayhap, too, if I thought you 'd guess the meaning, I 'd not have been so ready to show it to you.” And with this he replaced the boat in his pocket and smoked away. “You ain't a genius, my worthy friend, that's a fact,” said he, sententiously.
“I opine that the same judgment might be passed upon a great many?” said I, testily.
“No,” continued he, following on his own thoughts without heeding my remark, “you 'll not set the Thames a-fire.”
“Is that the best test of a man's ability?” asked I, sneeringly.
“You're the sort of fellow that ought to be—let us see now what you ought to be,—yes, you 're just the stamp of man for an apothecary.”
“You are so charming in your frankness,” said I, “that you almost tempt me to imitate you.”
“And why not? Sure we oughtn't to talk to each other like two devils in waiting. Out with what you have to say!”
“I was just thinking,” said I,—“led to it by that speculative turn of yours,—I was just thinking in what station your abilities would have pre-eminently distinguished you.”
“Well, have you hit it?”
“I'm not quite certain,” said I, trying to screw up my courage for an impertinence, “but I half suspect that in our great national works—our lines of railroad, for instance—there must be a strong infusion of men with tastes and habits resembling yours.”
“You mean the navvies?” broke he in. “You 're right, I was a navvy once; I turned the first spadeful of earth on the Coppleston Junction, and, seeing what a good thing might be made of it, I suggested task-work to my comrades, and we netted from four-and-six to five shillings a day each. In eight months after, I was made an inspector; so that you see strong sinews can be good allies to a strong head and a stout will.”
I do not believe that the most angry rebuke, the most sarcastic rejoinder, could have covered me with a tenth part of the shame and confusion that did these few words. I'd have given worlds, if I had them, to make a due reparation for my rudeness, but I knew not how to accomplish it I looked into his face to read if I might hit upon some trait by which his nature could be approached; but I might as well have gazed at a line of railroad to guess the sort of town that it led to. The stern, rugged, bold countenance seemed to imply little else than daring and determination, and I could not but wonder how I had ever dared to take a liberty with one of his stamp.
“Well,” said I, at last, and wishing to lead him back to his story, “and after being made inspector—”
“You can speak German well,” said he, totally inattentive to my question; “just ask one of these people when there will be any conveyance from this to Ragatz.”
“Ragatz, of all places!” exclaimed I.
“Yes; they tell me it's good for the rheumatics, and I have got some old shoulder pains I 'd like to shake off before winter. And then this sprain, too; I foresee I shall not be able to walk much for some days to come.”
“Ragatz is on my road; I am about to cross the Splugen into Italy; I'll bear you company so far, if you have no objection.”
“Well, it may not seem civil to say it, but I have an objection,” said he, rising from the table. “When I've got weighty things on my mind, I 've a bad habit of talking of them to myself aloud. I can't help it, and so I keep strictly alone till my plans are all fixed and settled; after that, there's no danger of my revealing them to any one. There now, you have my reason, and you 'll not dispute that it's a good one.”
“You may not be too distrustful of yourself,” said I, laughing, “but, assuredly, you are far too flattering in your estimate of my acuteness.”
“I'll not risk it,” said he, bluntly, as he sought for his hat.
“Wait a moment,” said I. “You told me at Constance that you were in want of money; at the time I was not exactly in funds myself. Yesterday, however, I received a remittance; and if ten or twenty pounds be of any service, they are heartily at your disposal.”
He looked at me fixedly, almost sternly, for a minute or two, and then said,—
“Is this true, or is it that you have changed your mind about me?”
“True,” said I,—“strictly true.”
“Will this loan—I mean it to be a loan—inconvenience you much?”
“No, no; I make you the offer freely.”
“I take it, then. Let me have ten pounds; and write down there an address where I am to remit it some day or other, though I can't say when.”
“There may be some difficulty about that,” said I. “Stay. I mean to be at Rome some time in the winter; send it to me there.”
“To what banker?”
“I have no banker; I never had a banker. There's my name, and let the post-office be the address.”
“Whichever way you 're bent on going, you 're not on the road to be a rich man,” said Harpar, as he deposited my gold in his leather purse; “but I hope you 'll not lose by me. Good-bye.” He gave me his hand, not very warmly or cordially, either, and was gone ere I well knew it.
I went the next morning to take leave of Harpar before starting, but found, to my astonishment, that he was already off! He had, I learned, hired a small carriage to convey him to Bregenz, and had set out before daybreak. I do not know why this should have annoyed me, but it did so, and set me a-thinking over the people whom Echstein in his “Erfahrungen,” says, are born to be dupes. “There is,” says he, “a race of men who are 'eingeborne Narren,'—'native numskulls,' one might say,—who muddy the streams of true benevolence by indiscriminating acts of kindness, and who, by always aiding the wrongdoer, make themselves accomplices of vice.” Could it be that I was in this barren category? Harpar had told me, the evening before, that he would not leave Lindau till his sprain was better, and now he was off, just as if, having no further occasion for me, he was glad to be rid of my companionship—just as if—I was beginning again to start another conjecture, when I bethought me that there is not a more deceptive formula in the whole cyclopaedia of delusion than that which opens with these same words, “just as if.” Rely upon it, amiable reader, that whenever you find yourself driven to explain a motive, trace a cause, or reconcile a discrepancy, by “just as if,” the chances are about seven to three you are wrong. If I was not in the bustle of paying my bill and strapping on my knapsack, I 'd convince you on this head; but, as the morning is a bright but mellow one of early autumn, and my path lies along the placid lake, waveless and still, with many a tinted tree reflected in its fair mirror, let us not think of knaves and rogues, but rather dwell on the pleasanter thought of all the good and grateful things which daily befall us in this same life of ours. I am full certain that almost all of us enter upon what is called the world in too combative a spirit We are too fond of dragon slaying, and rather than be disappointed of our sport, we 'd fall foul of a pet lamb, for want of a tiger. Call it self-delusion, credulity, what you will, it is a faith that makes life very livable, and, without it,
“Still,” thought I, “one ought to maintain self-respect; one should not willingly make himself a dupe.” And then I began to wish that Vaterchen had come up, and that Tinte-fleck was rushing towards me with tears in her eyes, and my money-bag in her hands. I wanted to forget them. I tried in a hundred ways to prevent them crossing my memory; but though there is a most artful system of artificial “mnemonics” invented by some one, the Lethal art has met no explorer, and no man has ever yet found out the way to shut the door against bygones. I believe it is scarcely more than five miles to Bregenz from Lindau, and yet I was almost as many hours on the road. I sat down, perhaps twenty times, lost in revery; indeed, I'm not very sure that I did n't take a sound sleep under a spreading willow, so that, when I reached the inn, the company was just going in to dinner at the table d'hôte. Simple and unpretentious as that board was, the company that graced it was certainly distinguished, being no less than the Austrian field-marshal in command of the district, and the officers of his staff. To English notions, it seemed very strange to see a nobleman of the highest rank, in the proudest state of Europe, seated at a dinner-table open to all comers, at a fraction less than one shilling a head, and where some of the government officials of the place daily came.
It was not without a certain sense of shame that I found myself in the long low chamber, in which about twenty officers were assembled, whose uniforms were all glittering with stars, medals, and crosses; in fact, to a weak-minded civilian like myself, they gave the impression of a group of heroes fresh come from all the triumphant glories of a campaign. Between the staff, which occupied one end of the long table, and the few townsfolk who sat at the other, there intervened a sort of frontier territory uninhabited; and it was here that the waiter located me,—an object of observation and remark to each. Resolving to learn how I was treated by my critics, I addressed the waiter in the very worst French, and protested my utter ignorance of German. I had promised myself much amusement from this expedient, but was doomed to a severe disappointment,—the officers coolly setting me down for a servant, while the townspeople pronounced me a pedler; and when these judgments had been recorded, instead of entering upon a psychological examination of my nature, temperament, and individuality, they never noticed me any more. I felt hurt at this, more, indeed, for their sakes than my own, since I bethought me of the false impression that is current of this people throughout Europe, where they have the reputation of philosophers deeply engaged in researches into character, minute anatomists of human thought and man's affections; “and yet,” muttered I, “they can sit at table with one of the most remarkable of men, and be as ignorant of all about him as the husbandman who toils at his daily labor is of the mineral treasures that lie buried down beneath him.”
“I will read them a lesson,” thought I. “They shall see that in the humble guise of foot-traveller it may be the pleasure of men of rank and station to journey.” The townsfolk, when the dessert made its appearance, rose to take their departure, each before he left the room making a profound obeisance to the general, and then another but less lowly act of homage to the staff, showing by this that strangers were expected to withdraw, while the military guests sat over their wine. Indeed, a very significant look from the last person who left the room conveyed to me the etiquette of the place. I was delighted at this,—it was the very opportunity I longed for; and so, with a clink of my knife against my wine-glass, the substitute for a bell in use amongst humble hostels, I summoned the waiter, and asked for his list of wines. I saw that my act had created some astonishment amongst the others, but it excited nothing more, and now they had all lighted their pipes, and sat smoking away quite regardless of my presence. I had ordered a flask of Steinberger at four florins, and given most special directions that my glass should have a “roped rim,” and be of a tender green tint, but not too deep to spoil the color of the wine.
My admonitions were given aloud, and in a tone of command; but I perceived that they failed to create any impression upon my moustached neighbors. I might have ordered nectar or hypocras, for all that they seemed to care about me. I raked up in memory all the impertinent and insolent things Henri Heine had ever said of Austria; I bethought me how they tyrannized in the various provinces of their scattered empire, and how they were hated by Hun, Slavac, and Italian; I revelled in those slashing leading articles that used to show up the great but bankrupt bully, and I only wished I was “own correspondent” to something at home to give my impressions of “Austria and her military system.”
Little as you think of that pale sad-looking stranger, who sits sipping his wine in solitude at the foot of the table, he is about to transmit yourselves and your country to a remote posterity. “Ay!” muttered I, “to be remembered when the Danube will be a choked-up rivulet, and the park of Schônbrunn a prairie for the buffalo.” I am not exactly aware how or why these changes were to have occurred, but Lord Macaulay's New Zealander might have originated them.
While I thus mused and brooded, the tramp of four horses came clattering down the street, and soon after swept into the arched doorway of the inn with a rolling and thunderous sound.
“Here he comes; here he is at last! said a young officer, who had rushed in haste to the window; and at the announcement a very palpable sentiment of satisfaction seemed to spread itself through the company, even to the grim old field-marshal, who took his pipe from his mouth to say,—
“He is in time,—he saves 'arrest!'”
As he spoke, a tall man in uniform entered the room, and walking with military step till he came in front of the General, said, in a loud but respectful voice,—
“I have the honor to report myself as returned to duty.”
The General replied something I could not catch, and then shook him warmly by the hand, making room for him to sit down next him.
“How far did your Royal Highness go? Not to Coire?” said the General.
“Far beyond it, sir,” said the other. “I went the whole way to the Splügen, and if it were not for the terror of your displeasure, I 'd have crossed the mountain and gone on to Chiavenna.”
The fact that I was listening to the narrative of a royal personage was not the only bond of fascination to me, for somehow the tone of the speaker's voice sounded familiarly to my ears, and I could have sworn I had heard it before. As he was at the same side of the table with myself, I could not see him; but while he continued to talk, the impression grew each moment more strong that I must have met him previously.
I could gather—it was easy enough to do so—from the animated looks of the party, and the repeated bursts of laughter that followed his sallies, that the newly arrived officer was a wit and authority amongst his comrades. His elevated rank, too, may have contributed to this popularity. Must I own that he appeared in the character that to me is particularly offensive? He was a “narrator.” That vulgar adage of “two of a trade” has a far wider acceptance when applied to the operations of intellect than when addressed to the work of men's hands. To see this jealousy at its height, you must look for it amongst men of letters, artists, actors, or, better still, those social performers who are the bright spirits of dinner-parties,—the charming men of society. All the animosities of political or religious hate are mild compared to the detestation this rivalry engenders; and now, though the audience was a foreign one, which I could have no pretension to amuse, I conceived the most bitter dislike for the man who had engaged their attention.
I do not know how it may be with others, but to myself there has always been this difficulty in a foreign language, that until I have accustomed myself to the tone of voice and the manner of a speaker, I can rarely follow him without occasional lapses. Now, on the present occasion, the narrator., though speaking distinctly, and with a good accent, had a very rapid utterance, and it was not till I had familiarized my ear with his manner that I could gather his words correctly. Nor was my difficulty lessened by the fact that, as he pretended to be witty and epigrammatic, frequent bursts of laughter broke from his audience and obscured his speech. He was, as it appeared, giving an account of a fishing excursion he had just taken to one of the small mountain lakes near Poppenheim, and it was clear enough he was one who always could eke an adventure out of even the most ordinary incident of daily life.
This fishing story had really nothing in it, though he strove to make out fifty points of interest or striking situations out of the veriest commonplace. At last, however, I saw that, like a practised story-teller, he was hoarding up his great incident for the finish.
“As I have told you,” said he, “I engaged the entire of the little inn for myself; there were but five rooms in it altogether, and though I did not need more than two, I took the rest, that I might be alone and unmolested. Well, it was on my second evening there, as I sat smoking my pipe at the door, and looking over my tackle for the morrow, there came up the glen the strange sound of wheels, and, to my astonishment, a travelling-carriage soon appeared, with four horses driven in hand; and as I saw in a moment, it was a lohnkutscher who had taken the wrong turning after leaving Ragatz, and mistaken the road, for the highway ceases about two miles above Poppenheim, and dwindles down to a mere mule-path. Leaving my host to explain the mistake to the travellers, I hastily re-entered the house, just as the carriage drove up. The explanation seemed a very prolix one, for when I looked out of the window, half an hour afterwards, there were the horses still standing at the door, and the driver, with a large branch of alder, whipping away the flies from them, while the host continued to hold his place at the carriage door. At last he entered my room, and said that the travellers, two foreign ladies,—he thought them Russians,—had taken the wrong road, but that the elder, what between fatigue and fear, was so overcome that she could not proceed further, and entreated that they might be afforded any accommodation—mere shelter for the night—rather than retrace their road to Ragatz.
“'Well,' said I, carelessly, 'let them have the rooms on the other side of the hall; so that they only stop for one night, the intrusion will not signify.' Not a very gracious reply, perhaps, but I did not want to be gracious. The fact was, as the old lady got out, I saw something like an elephant's leg, in a fur boot, that quite decided me on not making acquaintance with the travellers, and I was rash enough to imagine they must be both, alike. Indeed, I was do resolute in maintaining my solitude undisturbed, that I told my host on no account whatever to make me any communication from the strangers, nor on any pretext to let me feel that they were lodged under the same roof with myself. Perhaps, if the next day had been one to follow my usual sport, I should have forgotten all about them, but it was one of such rain as made it perfectly impossible to leave the house. I doubt if I ever saw rain like it. It came down in sheets, like water splashed out of buckets, flattening the small trees to the earth, and beating down all the light foliage into the muddy soil beneath; meanwhile the air shook with the noise of the swollen torrents, and all the mountain-streams crashed and thundered away, like great cataracts. Rain can really become grand at such moments, and no more resembling a mere shower than the cry of a single brawler in the streets is like the roar of a mighty multitude. It was so fine that I determined I would go down to a little wooden bridge over the river, whence I could see the stream as it came down, tumbling and splashing, from a cleft in the mountain. I soon dressed myself in all my best waterproofs,—hat, cape, boots, and all,—and set out Until I was fully embarked on my expedition, I had no notion of the severity of the storm, and it was with considerable difficulty I could make bead against the wind and rain together, while the slippery ground made walking an actual labor.
“At last I reached the river; but of the bridge, the only trace was a single beam, which, deeply buried in the bank at one extremity, rose and fell in the surging flood, like the arm of a drowning swimmer. The stream had completely filled the channel, and swept along, with fragments of timber, and even furniture, in its muddy tide; farm produce, and implements too, came floating by, showing what destruction had been effected higher up the river. As I stood gazing on the current, I saw, at a little distance from me, a man, standing motionless beside the river, and apparently lost in thought,—so, at least, he seemed; for though not at all clad in a way to resist the storm, he remained there, wet and soaked through, totally regardless of the weather. On inquiring at the inn, I learned that this was the lohnkutscher—the vetturino—of the travellers, and who, in attempting to ascertain if the stream were fordable, had lost one of his best horses, and barely escaped being carried away himself. Until that, I had forgotten all about the strangers, who, it now appeared, were close prisoners like myself. While the host was yet speaking, the lohnkutscher came up, and in a tone of equality, that showed me he thought I was in his own line of business, asked if I would sell him one of my nags then in the stable.
“Not caring to disabuse him of his error regarding my rank, I did not refuse him so flatly as I might, and he pressed the negotiation very warmly in consequence. At last, to get rid of him, I declared that I would not break up my team, and retired into the house. I was not many minutes in my room, when a courier came, with a polite message from his mistress, to beg I would speak with her. I went at once, and found an old lady,—she was English, as her French bespoke,—very well mannered and well bred, who apologized for troubling me; but having heard from her vetturino that my horses were disengaged, and that I might, if not disposed to sell one of them, hire out the entire team, to take their carriage as far as Andeer—By the time she got thus far, I perceived that she, too, mistook me for a lohnkutscher. It just struck me what good fun it would be to carry on the joke. To be sure, the lady herself presented no inducement to the enterprise; and as I thus balanced the case, there came into the room one of the prettiest girls I ever saw. She never turned a look towards where I was standing, nor deigned to notice me at all, but passed out of the room as rapidly as she entered; still, I remembered that I had already seen her before, and passed a delightful evening in her company at a little inn in the Black Forest.”
When the narrator had got thus far in his story, I leaned forward to catch a full view of him, and saw, to my surprise, and, I own, to my misery, that he was the German count we had met at the Titi-See. So overwhelming was this discovery to me, that I heard nothing for many minutes after. All of that wretched scene between us on the last evening at the inn came full to my memory, and I bethought me of lying the whole night on the hard table, fevered with rage and terror alternately. If it were not that his narrative regarded Miss Herbert now, I would have skulked out of the room, and out of the inn, and out of the town itself, never again to come under the insolent stare of those wicked gray eyes; but in that name there was a fascination,—not to say that a sense of jealousy burned at my heart like a furnace.
The turmoil of my thought lost me a great deal of his story, and might have lost me more, had not the hearty laughter of his comrades recalled me once again to attention.
He was describing how, as a vetturino, he drove their carriage with his own spanking gray horses to Coire, and thence to Andeer. He had bargained, it seemed, that Miss Herbert should travel outside in the cabriolet, but she failed to keep her pledge, so that they only met at stray moments during the journey. It was in one of these she said laughingly to him,—
“'Nothing would surprise me less than to learn, some fine morning, that you were a prince in disguise, or a great count of the empire, at least. It was only the other day we were honored with the incognito presence of a royal personage; I do not exactly know who, but Mrs. Keats could tell you. He left us abruptly at Schaffbausen.'
“'You can't mean the creature,' said I, 'that I saw in your company at the Titi-See?'
“'The same,' said she, rather angrily.
“'Why, he is a saltimbanque; I saw him the morning I came through Constance, with some others of his troop dragged before the maire for causing a disturbance in a cabaret; one of the most consummate impostors, they told me, in Europe.'”
“An infamous falsehood, and a base liar the man who says it!” cried I, springing to my legs, and standing revealed before the company in an attitude of haughty defiance. “I am the person you have dared to defame. I have never assumed to be a prince, and as little am I a rope-dancer. I am an English gentleman, travelling for his pleasure, and I hurl back every word you have said of me with contempt and defiance.”
Before I had finished this insolent speech, some half-dozen swords were drawn and brandished in the air, very eager, as it seemed, to cut me to pieces, and the Count himself required all the united strength of the party to save me from his hands. At last I was pushed, hustled, and dragged out of the room to another smaller one on the same floor, and, the key being turned on me, left to my very happy reflections.