CHAPTER XVII.
SAID Kenelm, at last breaking silence--
"'Rapiamus, amici,
Occasionem de die, dumque virent genua,
Et decet, obducta solvatur fronte senectus!'"
"Is not that quotation from Horace?" asked the minstrel.
"Yes; and I made it insidiously, in order to see if you had not
acquired what is called a classical education."
"I might have received such education, if my tastes and my destinies
had not withdrawn me in boyhood from studies of which I did not then
comprehend the full value. But I did pick up a smattering of Latin at
school; and from time to time since I left school I have endeavoured
to gain some little knowledge of the most popular Latin poets;
chiefly, I own to my shame, by the help of literal English
translations."
"As a poet yourself, I am not sure that it would be an advantage to
know a dead language so well that its forms and modes of thought ran,
though perhaps unconsciously, into those of the living one in which
you compose. Horace might have been a still better poet if he had not
known Greek better than you know Latin."
"It is at least courteous in you to say so," answered the singer, with
a pleased smile.
"You would be still more courteous," said Kenelm, "if you would pardon
an impertinent question, and tell me whether it is for a wager that
you wander through the land, Homer-like, as a wandering minstrel, and
allow that intelligent quadruped your companion to carry a tray in his
mouth for the reception of pennies?"
"No, it is not for a wager; it is a whim of mine, which I fancy from
the tone of your conversation you could understand, being apparently
somewhat whimsical yourself."
"So far as whim goes, be assured of my sympathy."
"Well, then, though I follow a calling by the exercise of which I
secure a modest income, my passion is verse. If the seasons were
always summer, and life were always youth, I should like to pass
through the world singing. But I have never ventured to publish any
verses of mine. If they fell still-born it would give me more pain
than such wounds to vanity ought to give to a bearded man; and if they
were assailed or ridiculed it might seriously injure me in my
practical vocation. That last consideration, were I quite alone in
the world, might not much weigh on me; but there are others for whose
sake I should like to make fortune and preserve station. Many years
ago--it was in Germany--I fell in with a German student who was very
poor, and who did make money by wandering about the country with lute
and song. He has since become a poet of no mean popularity, and he
has told me that he is sure he found the secret of that popularity in
habitually consulting popular tastes during his roving apprenticeship
to song. His example strongly impressed me. So I began this
experiment; and for several years my summers have been all partly
spent in this way. I am only known, as I think I told you before, in
the rounds I take as 'The Wandering Minstrel;' I receive the trifling
moneys that are bestowed on me as proofs of a certain merit. I should
not be paid by poor people if I did not please; and the songs which
please them best are generally those I love best myself. For the
rest, my time is not thrown away,--not only as regards bodily health,
but healthfulness of mind: all the current of one's ideas becomes so
freshened by months of playful exercise and varied adventure."
"Yes, the adventure is varied enough," said Kenelm, somewhat ruefully;
for he felt, in shifting his posture, a sharp twinge of his bruised
muscles. "But don't you find those mischief-makers, the women, always
mix themselves up with adventure?"
"Bless them! of course," said the minstrel, with a ringing laugh. "In
life, as on the stage, the petticoat interest is always the
strongest."
"I don't agree with you there," said Kenelm, dryly. "And you seem to
me to utter a claptrap beneath the rank of your understanding.
However, this warm weather indisposes one to disputation; and I own
that a petticoat, provided it be red, is not without the interest of
colour in a picture."
"Well, young gentleman," said the minstrel, rising, "the day is
wearing on, and I must wish you good-by; probably, if you were to
ramble about the country as I do, you would see too many pretty girls
not to teach you the strength of petticoat interest,--not in pictures
alone; and should I meet you again I may find you writing love-verses
yourself."
"After a conjecture so unwarrantable, I part company with you less
reluctantly than I otherwise might do. But I hope we shall meet
again."
"Your wish flatters me much; but, if we do, pray respect the
confidence I have placed in you, and regard my wandering minstrelsy
and my dog's tray as sacred secrets. Should we not so meet, it is but
a prudent reserve on my part if I do not give you my right name and
address."
"There you show the cautious common-sense which belongs rarely to
lovers of verse and petticoat interest. What have you done with your
guitar?"
"I do not pace the roads with that instrument: it is forwarded to me
from town to town under a borrowed name, together with other raiment
that this, should I have cause to drop my character of wandering
minstrel."
The two men here exchanged a cordial shake of the hand. And as the
minstrel went his way along the river-side, his voice in chanting
seemed to lend to the wavelets a livelier murmur, to the reeds a less
plaintive sigh.
