Though I was a few minutes late for dinner, Miss Herbert did not chide me for delay. She was charming in her reception of me; nor was the fascination diminished to me by feeling with what generous warmth she had defended and upheld me.
There is a marvellous charm in the being defended by one you love, and of whose kind feeling towards you you had never dared to assure yourself till the very moment that confirmed it. I don't know if I ever felt in such spirits in my life. Not that I was gay or light-hearted so much as happy,—happy in the sense of a self-esteem I had not known till then. And what a spirit of cordial familiarity was there now between us! She spoke to me of her daily life, its habits and even of its trials; not complain-ingly nor fretfully,—far from it,—but in a way to imply that these were the burdens meted out to all, and that none should arrogantly imagine he was to escape the lot of his fellows. And then we talked of the Croftons, of whom she was curious to hear details,—their ages, appearance, manner, and so on; lastly, how I came to know them, and thus imperceptibly led me to tell of myself and of my story. I am sure that we each of us had enough of care upon our hearts, and yet none would have ever guessed it to have seen how joyously and merrily we laughed over some of the incidents of my checkered career. She bantered me, too, on the feeble and wayward impulses by which I had suffered myself to be moved, and gravely asked me, had I accomplished any single one of all the objects I had set before my mind in starting.
Far more earnestly, however, did we discuss the future. She heard with joy that I had already secured a passage for Constantinople, and declared that she could not dismiss from her mind the impression that I was destined to aid their return to happiness and prosperity. I liked the notion, too, of there being a fate in our first meeting; a fate in that acquaintanceship with the Croftons, which gave the occasion to seek her out again; and, last of all, if it might be so, a fate in the influence I was to exercise over their fortunes. I was so absorbed in these pleasant themes that I, with as little of the lion in my heart as any man breathing, never once thought of the quarrel and its impending consequences. How my heart beat as her soft breath fanned me while she spoke! As she was telling me when and from whence I was to write to her, the servant came to say that a gentleman outside begged to see Mr. Potts. I hurried to the hail.
“Not come to disturb you, Potts,” said the skipper, in a brisk tone; “only thought it best to make your mind easy. It's all right.”
“A thousand thanks, Captain,” said I, warmly. “I knew when the negotiation was in your hands it would be so.”
“Yes; his friend, a Major Colesby, boggled a bit at first Could n't see the thing in the light I put it. Asked very often 'who were you?' asked, too, 'who I was?' Good that! it made me laugh. Rather late in the day, I take it, to ask who Bob Rogers is! But in the end, as I said, it all comes right, quite right.”
“And his apology was full, ample, and explicit? Was it in writing, Rogers? I 'd like it in writing.”
“Like what in writing.”
“His apology, or explanation, or whatever you like to call it.”
“Who ever spoke of such a thing? Who so much as dreamed of it? Haven't I told you the affair is all right? and what does all right mean, eh?—what does it mean?”
“I know what it ought to mean,” said I, angrily.
“So do I, and so do most men in this island, sir. It means twelve paces under the Battery wall, fire together, and as many shots as the aggrieved asks for. That's all right, isn't it?”
“In one sense it is so,” said I, with a mock composure.
“Well, that's the only sense I ever meant to consider it by. Go back now to your tea, or your sugar-and-water, or whatever it is; and when you come home to-night, step into my room, and we'll have a cosey chat and a cigar. There 's one or two trifling things that I don't understand in this affair, and I put my own explanation on them, and maybe it ain't the right one. Not that it signifies now, you perceive, because you are here to the fore, and can set them right. But as by this time to-morrow you might be where—I won't mention'—we may as well put them straight this evening.”
“I'll beat you up, depend upon it,” said I, affecting a slap-dash style. “I can't tell you how glad I am to have fallen into your hands, Rogers. You suit me exactly.”
“Well, it's more than I expected when I saw you first, and I kept saying to myself, 'Whatever could have persuaded Joe to send me a creature like that?' To tell you the truth, I thought you were in the cheap funeral line.”
“Droll dog!” said I, while my fingers were writhing and twisting with passion.
“Not that it's fair to take a fellow by his looks. I'm aware of that, Potts. But go back to the parlor; that's the second time the maid has come out to see what keeps you. Go back, and enjoy yourself; maybe you won't have so pleasant an opportunity soon again.”
This was the parting speech of the wretch as he buttoned the collar of his coat, and with a short nod bade me goodbye, and left me.
“Why did you not ask your friend to take a cup of tea with us?'” said Kate, as I re-entered the drawing-room.
“Oh! it was the skipper, a rough sort of creature, not exactly made for drawing-room life; besides, he only came to ask me a question.”
“I hope it was not a very unpleasant one, for you look pale and anxious.”
“Nothing of the kind; a mere formal matter about my baggage.”
It was no use; from that moment, I was the most miserable of mankind. What availed it to speculate any longer on the future? How could I interest myself in what years might bring forth? Hours, and a very few of them, were all that were left to me. Poor girl! how tenderly she tried to divert my sorrow! She, most probably, ascribed it to the prospect of our speedy separation; and with delicacy and tact, she tried to trace out some faint outlines of what painters call “extreme distance,”—a sort of future where all the skies would be rose-colored and all the mountains blue. I am sure, if a choice had been given me at that instant, I would rather have been a courageous man than the greatest genius in the universe. I knew better what was before. At last it came to ten o'clock, and I arose to say good-bye. I found it very hard not to fall upon her neck and say, “Don't be angry with poor Potts; this is his last as it is his first embrace.”
“Wear that ring for me and for my sake,” said she, giving me one from her finger; “don't refuse me,—it has no value save what you may attach to it from having been mine.”
Oh dear! what a gulp it cost me not to say, “I 'll never take it off while I live,” and then add, “which will be about eight hours and a half more.”
When I got into the open air, I ran as if a pack of wolves were in pursuit of me. I cannot say why; but the rapid motion served to warm my blood, so that when I reached the hotel, I felt more assured and more resolute.
Rogers was asleep, and so soundly that I had to pull the pillow from beneath his head before I could awaken him; and when I had accomplished the feat, either the remote effect of his brandy-and-water or his drowsiness had so obscured his faculties, that all he could mumble out was, “Hit him where he can't be spliced,—hit him where they can't splice him!” I tried for a long time to recall him to sense and intelligence, but I got nothing from him save the one inestimable precept; and so I went to my room, and, throwing myself on my bed in my cloak, prepared for a night of gloomy retrospect and gloomier anticipation; but, odd enough, I was asleep the moment I lay down.
“Get up, old fellow,” cried Rogers, shaking me violently, just as the dawn was breaking; “we 're lucky if we can get aboard before they catch us.”
“What do you mean?” said I. “What's happened?”
“The Governor has got wind of our shindy, and put all the red-coats in arrest, and ordered the police to nab us too.”
“Bless him! bless him!” muttered I.
“Ay, so say I. He be blessed!” cried he, catching up my words. “But let us make off through the garden; my gig is down in the offing, and they 'll pull in when they hear my whistle. Ain't it provoking,—ain't it enough to make a man swear?”
“I have no words for what I feel, Rogers,” said I, bustling about to collect my stray articles through the room. “If I ever chance upon that Governor—he has only five years of it—I believe—”
“Come along! I see the boat coming round the point yonder.” And with this we slipped noiselessly down the stairs, down the street, and gained the Jetty.
“Steam up?” asked the skipper, as he jumped into the gig.
“Ay, ay, sir; and we're short on the anchor too.” In less than half an hour we were under weigh, and I don't think I ever admired a land prospect receding from view with more intense delight than I did that, my last glimpse of Malta.
Our voyage had nothing remarkable to record; we reached Constantinople in due course, and during the few days the “Cyclops” remained, I had abundant time to discover that there was no trace of any one resembling him I sought for. By the advice of Rogers, I accompanied him to Odessa. There, too, I was not more fortunate; and though I instituted the most persevering inquiries, all I could learn was that some Americans were employed by the Russian Government in raising the frigates sunk at Sebastopol, and that it was not impossible an Englishman, such as I described, might have met an engagement amongst them. At all events, one of the coasting craft was already at Odessa, and I went on board of her to make my inquiry. I learned from the mate, who was a German, that they had come over on rather a strange errand, which was to convey a corps of circus people to Balaklava. The American contractor at that place, being in want of some amusement, had arranged with these people to give some weeks' performances there, but that, from an incident that had just occurred, the project had failed. This was no less than the elopement of the chief dancer, a young girl of great beauty, with a young prince of Bavaria. It was rumored that he had married her, but my informant gave little credence to this version, and averred that he had bought, not only herself, but a favorite Old Arab horse she rode, for thirty thousand piastres. I asked eagerly where the others of the corps were to be found, and heard they had crossed over to Simoom, all broken up and disjointed, the chief clown having died of grief after the girl's flight.
If I heard this tale rudely narrated, and not always with the sort of comment that went with my sympathies, I sorrowed sincerely over it, for I guessed upon whom these events had fallen, and recognized poor old Vaterchen and the dark-eyed Tintefleck.
“You 've fallen into the black melancholies these some days back,” said Rogers to me. “Rouse up, and take a cruise with me. I 'm going over to Balaklava with these steam-boilers, and then to Sinope, and so back to the Bosphorus. Come aboard to-night, it will do you good.”
I took his counsel, and at noon next day we dropped anchor at Balaklava. We had scarcely passed our “health papers,” when a boat came out with a message to inquire if we had a doctor on board who could speak English, for the American contractor had fallen from one of the scaffolds that morning, and was lying dreadfully injured up at Sebastopol, but unable to explain himself to the Russian surgeons. I was not without some small skill in medicine; and, besides, out of common humanity, I felt it my duty to set out, and at about sunset I reached Sebastopol.
Being supposed to be a physician of great skill and eminence, I was treated by all the persons about with much deference, and, after very few minutes' delay, introduced into the room where the sick man lay. He had ordered that when an English doctor could be found, they were to leave them perfectly alone together; so that, as I entered, the door was closed immediately, and I found myself alone by the bedside of the sufferer. The curtain was closely drawn across the windows, and it was already dusk, so that all I could discover was the figure of a man, who lay breathing very heavily, and with the irregular action that implies great pain.
“Are you English?” said he, in a strong, full voice. “Well, feel that pulse, and tell me if it means sinking; I suspect it does.”
I took his hand and laid my finger on the artery. It was beating furiously,—far too fast to count, but not weakly nor faintly.
“No,” said I; “this is fever, but not debility.”
“I don't want subtleties,” rejoined he, roughly. “I want to know am I dying? Draw the curtain there, open the window full, and have a look at me.”
I did as he bade me, and returned to the bedside. It was all I could do not to cry out with astonishment; for, though terribly disfigured by his wounds, his eyes actually covered by the torn scalp that hung over them, I saw that it was Harpar lay before me, his large reddish beard now matted and clotted with blood.
“Well, what's the verdict?” cried he, sternly; “don't keep me in suspense.”
“I do not perceive any grave symptoms so far—”
“No cant, my good friend, no cant! It's out of place just now. Be honest, and say what is it to be,—live or die?”
“So far as I can judge, I say, live.”
“Well, then, set about the repairs at once. Ask for what you want,—they 'll bring it.”
Deeming it better not to occasion any shock whatever to a man in his state, I forbore declaring who I was, and set about my office with what skill I could.
With the aid of a Russian surgeon, who spoke German well, I managed to dress the wounds and bandage the fractured arm, during which the patient never spoke once, nor, indeed, seemed to be at all concerned in what was going on.
“You can stay here, I hope,” said he to me, when all was finished. “At least, you 'll see me through the worst of it I can afford to pay, and pay well.”
“I 'll stay,” said I, imitating his own laconic way; and no more was said.
Now, though it was not my intention to pass myself off for a physician, or derive any, even the smallest advantage from the assumption of such a character, I saw that, remote as the poor sufferer was from his friends and country, and totally destitute of even companionship, it would have been cruel to desert him until he was sufficiently recovered to be left with servants.
From his calm composure, and the self-control he was able to exercise, I had formed a far too favorable opinion of his case. When I saw him first the inflammatory symptoms had not yet set in; so that at my next visit I found him in a high fever, raving wildly. In his wanderings he imagined himself ever directing some gigantic enterprise, with hundreds of men at his command, whose efforts he was cheering or chiding alternately. The indomitable will of a most resolute nature was displayed in all he said; and though his bodily sufferings must have been intense, he only alluded to them to show how little power they had to arrest his activity. His ever-recurring cry was, “It can be done, men! It can be done! See that we do it!”
I own that, even though stretched on a sick-bed and raving madly, this man's unquenchable energy impressed me greatly; and I often fancied to myself what must have been the resources of such a bold spirit in sad contrast to a nature pliant and yielding like mine. To the violence of the first access, there soon succeeded the far more dangerous state of low fever, through which I never left him. Care and incessant watching could alone save him, and I devoted myself to the last with the resolve to make this effort the first of a new and changed existence.
Day and night in the sick-room, I lost appetite and strength, while an unceasing care preyed upon me and deprived me even of rest. The very vacillations of the sick man's malady had affected my nerves, rendering me overanxious, so that just as he had passed the great crisis of the malady, I was stricken down with it myself.
My first day of convalescence, after seven weeks of fever, found me sitting at a little window that looked upon the sea, or rather the harbor of Sebastopol, where two frigates and some smaller vessels were at anchor. A group of lighters and such unpicturesque craft occupied another part of the scene, engaged, as it seemed, in operations for raising other vessels. It was in gazing for a long while at these, and guessing their occupation, that I learned to trace out the past, and why and how I had come to be sitting there. Every morning the German servant who tended me through my illness used to bring me the “Herr Baron's” compliments to know how I was, and now he came to say that as the “Herr Baron” was able to walk so far, he begged that he might be permitted to come and pay me a visit I was aware of the Russian custom of giving titles to all who served the Government in positions of high trust, and was therefore not astonished when the announcement of the “Herr Baron” was followed by the entrance of Harpar, who, sadly reduced, and leaning on a crutch, made his way slowly to where I sat. I attempted to rise to receive him, but he cried out, half sternly,—“Sit still! we are neither of us in good trim for ceremony.”
He motioned to the servants to leave us alone; then laying his wasted hand in mine, for we were each too weak to' grasp the other, he said,—
“I know all about it It was you saved my life, and risked your own to do it.”
I muttered out some unmeaning words—I know not well what—about duty and the like.
“I don't care a brass button for the motive. You stood to me like a man.” As he said this, he looked hard at me, and, shading the light with his hand, peered into my face. “Have n't we met before this? Is not your name Potts?”
“Yes, and you're Harpar.”
He reddened, but so slightly that but for the previous paleness of his sickly cheek it would not have been noticeable.
“I have often thought about you.” said he, musingly. “This is not the only service you have done me; the first was at Lindau,—mayhap you have forgotten it. You lent me two hundred florins, and, if I 'm not much mistaken, when you were far from being rich yourself.”
He leaned his head on his hand, and seemed to have fallen into a musing fit.
“And, after all,” said I, “of the best turn I ever did you, you have never heard in your life, and, what is more, might never hear, if not from myself. Do you remember an altercation on the road to Feldkirch, with a man called Rigges?”
“To be sure I do; he smashed the small-bone of this arm for me; but I gave worse than I got. They never could find that bullet I sent into his side, and he died of it at Palermo. But what share in this did you bear?”
“Not the worst nor the best; but I was imprisoned for a twelvemonth in your place.”
“Imprisoned for me?”
“Yes; they assumed that I was Harpar, and as I took no steps to undeceive them, there I remained till they seemed to have forgotten all about me.”
Harpar questioned me closely and keenly as to the reasons that prompted this act of mine,—an act all the more remarkable, as, to use his own words, “We were men who had no friendship for each other, actually strangers; and,” added he, significantly, “the sort of fellows who, somehow, do not usually 'hit it off' together. You a man of leisure, with your own dreamy mode of life; I, a hard worker, who could not enjoy idleness; and in this sense, far more likely to hold each other cheaply than otherwise.”
I attempted to account for this piece of devotion as best I might, but not very successfully, since I was only endeavoring to explain what I really did not well understand myself. Nor could a vague desire to do something generous, merely because it was generous, satisfy the practical intelligence of him who heard me.
“Well,” said he, at last, “all that machinery you have described is so new and strange to me, I can tell nothing as to how it ought to work; but I'm as grateful to you as a man can be for a service which he could not have rendered himself, nor has the slightest notion of what could have prompted you to do. Now, let me hear by what chance you came here?”
“You must listen to a long story to learn that,” said I; and as he declared that he had nothing more pressing to do with his time, I began, almost as I have begun with my reader. On my first mention of Crofton, he asked me to repeat the name; and when I spoke of meeting Miss Herbert at the Milford station, he slightly moved his chair, as if to avoid the strong light from the window; but from that moment till I finished, he never interrupted me by a word, nor interposed a question.
“And it was she gave you that old seal-ring I see on your finger?” said he, at last.
“Yes,” said I. “How came you to guess that?”
“Because I gave it to her the day she was sixteen! I am her father.”
I drew a long breath, and could only clutch his arm with astonishment, without being able to speak.
“It's all well-known in England, now. Everybody has been paid in full, my creditors have met in a body, and signed a request to me to come back and recommence business. They have done more; they have bought up the lease of the Foundry, and sent it out to me. Ay, and old Elkanah's mortgage, too, is redeemed, and I don't owe a shilling.”
“You must have worked hard to accomplish all this?”
“Pretty hard, no doubt. You remember those little boats with the holes in 'em at Lindau. They did the business for me. I was fool enough at that time to imagine that you had got a clew to my discovery, and were after me to pick up all the details. I ought to have known better! It was easy enough to see that you could have no head for anything with a 'tough bone' in it. Light, thoughtless creatures of your kind are never dangerous anywhere!”
I was not quite sure whether I was expected to return thanks for this speech in my favor, and therefore only made some very unintelligible mutterings.
“There's only one liner now to be raised, and all the guns are already out of her, but I can return to-morrow. I am free; my contract is completed; and the 'Ignatief' sloop-of-war is at my orders at Balaklava to convey me to any port I please in Europe.”
He said this so boastfully and so vaingloriously that I really felt Potts in his humility was not the smaller man of the two. Nor, perhaps, was my irritation the less, at seeing how little surprise our singular meeting had caused him, and how much he regarded all I had done in his behalf as being ordinary and commonplace services. But, perhaps, the coup de grace of my misery came as he said,—
“Though I forwarded that ten-pound note you lent me to Rome, perhaps you 'll like to have it now. If you need any more, say so.”
My heart was in my mouth, and I felt that I 'd have died of starvation rather than accept the humblest benefit at his hands.
“Very well,” said he to my refusal; “all the better that you 've no need of cash, for, to tell the truth, Potts, you 're not much of a doctor, nor are you very remarkable as a man of genius; and it is a kind thing of Providence when such fellows as you are born with even a 'pewter spoon' in their mouths.”
I nearly choked, but I said nothing.
“If you 'd like me to land you anywhere in the Levant, or down towards the Spanish coast, only tell me.”
“No, nothing of the kind. I 'm going north; I 'm going to Moscow, to Tobolsk; I 'm going to Persia and Astrakhan,” said I, in wildest confusion.
“Well, I can give you a capital travelling-cloak—it's one of those buntas they make in the Banat, and you 'll need it, for they have fearfully severe cold in those countries.”
With this, and not waiting my resolute refusal, he rose, hobbled out of the room, and I—ay, there's no concealing it—burst out a-crying!
Weak and sick as I was, I procured an “araba” that night, and, without one word of adieu, set out for Krim.
It was about two years after this—my father had died in the interval, leaving me a small but sufficient fortune to live on, and I had just arrived in Paris, after a long desultory ramble through the east of Europe—I was standing, one morning early in one of the small alleys of the Champs Élysées, watching with half-listless curiosity the various grooms as they passed to exercise their horses in the Bois de Boulogne. Group after group passed me of those magnificent animals in which Paris is now more than the rival of London, and at length I was struck by the appearance of a very smartly dressed groom, who led along beside him a small-sized horse, completely sheeted and shrouded from view. Believing that this must prove some creature of rare beauty, an Arab of purest descent, I followed them as they went, and at last overtook them.
The groom was English, and by my offer of a cigar, somewhat better than the one he was smoking, he was very willing to satisfy my curiosity.
“I suppose he has Arab blood in him,” said he, half contemptuously; “but he's forty years old now if he's a day. What they keep him for I don't know, but they make as much work about him as if he was a Christian; and as for myself, I have nothing else to do than walk him twice a day to his exercise, and take care that his oats are well bruised and mixed with linseed, for he hasn't a tooth left.”
“I suppose his master is some very rich man, who can afford himself a caprice like this.”
“For the matter of money, he has enough of it. He is the Prince Ernest Maximilian of Wurtemberg, and, except the Emperor, has the best stable in all Paris. But I don't think that he cares much for the old horse; it's the Princess likes him, and she constantly drives out to the wood here, and when we come to a quiet spot, where there are no strangers, she makes me take off all the body-clothes and the hood, and she 'll get out of the carriage and pat him. And he knows her, that he does! and lifts up that old leg of his when she comes towards him, and tries to whinny too. But here she comes now, and it won't do if I 'm seen talking to you; so just drop behind, sir, and never notice me.”
I crossed the road, and had but reached the opposite pathway, when a carriage stopped, and the old horse drew up beside it. After a word or two, the groom took off the hood, and there was Blondel! But my amazement was lost in the greater shock that the Princess, whose jewelled hand held out the sugar to him, was no other than Catinka!
I cannot say with what motive I was impelled,—perhaps the action was too quick for either,—but I drew nigh to the carriage, and, raising my hat respectfully, asked if her highness would deign to remember an old acquaintance.
“I am unfortunate enough, sir, not to be able to recall you,” said she, in the most perfect Parisian French.
“My name you may have forgotten, madam, but scarcely so either our first meeting at Schaffhausen, or our last at Bregenz.”
“These are all riddles to me, sir; and I am sure you are too well bred to persist in an error after you have recognized it to be such.” With a cold smile and a haughty bow, she motioned the coachman to drive on, and I saw her no more.
Stung to the very quick, but yet not without a misgiving that I might be possibly mistaken, I hurried to the police department, where the list of strangers was preserved. By sending in my card I was admitted to see one of the chiefs of the department, who politely informed me that the princess was totally unknown as to family, and not included in the Gotha Almanack.
“May I ask,” said he, as I prepared to retire, “if this letter here—it has been with us for more than a year—is for your address? It came with an enclosure covering any possible expense in reaching your address, and has lain here ever since.”
“Yes,” said I, “my name is Algernon Sydney Potts.”
Strange are the changes and vicissitudes of life! Just as I stood there, shocked and overwhelmed with one trait of cold ingratitude, I found a letter from Kate (she who was once Kate Herbert), telling me how they had sent messengers after me through Europe, and begging, if these lines should ever reach me, to come to them in Wales. “My father loves you, my mother longs to know you, and none can be more eager to thank you than your friend Kate Whalley.”
I set off for England that night—I left for Wales the next morning—and I have never quitted it since that day.
THE END.