CHAPTER XVIII.
Let a king and a beggar converse freely together, and it is the
beggar's fault if he does not say something which makes the king
lift his hat to him.
The scene shifts back to Gatesboro', the forenoon of the day succeeding
the memorable exhibition at the Institute of that learned town. Mr.
Hartopp was in the little parlour behind his country-house, his hours of
business much broken into by those intruders who deem no time
unseasonable for the indulgence of curiosity, the interchange of thought,
or the interests of general humanity and of national enlightenment. The
excitement produced on the previous evening by Mr. Chapman, Sophy, and
Sir Isaac was greatly on the increase. Persons who had seen them
naturally called on the Mayor to talk over the exhibition. Persons who
had not seen them, still more naturally dropped in just to learn what was
really Mr. Mayor's private opinion. The little parlour was thronged by a
regular levee There was the proprietor of a dismal building, still
called "The Theatre," which was seldom let except at election time, when
it was hired by the popular candidate for the delivery of those harangues
upon liberty and conscience, tyranny and oppression, which furnish the
staple of declamation equally to the dramatist and the orator. There was
also the landlord of the Royal Hotel, who had lately built to his house
"The City Concert-Room,"--a superb apartment, but a losing speculation.
There, too, were three highly respectable persons, of a serious turn of
mind, who came to suggest doubts whether an entertainment of so frivolous
a nature was not injurious to the morality of Gatesboro'. Besides these
notables, there were loungers and gossips, with no particular object
except that of ascertaining who Mr. Chapman was by birth and parentage,
and suggesting the expediency of a deputation, ostensibly for the purpose
of asking him to repeat his performance, but charged with private
instructions to cross-examine him as to his pedigree. The gentle Mayor
kept his eyes fixed on a mighty ledger-book, pen in hand. The attitude
was a rebuke on intruders, and in ordinary times would have been so
considered. But mildness, however majestic, is not always effective in
periods of civic commotion. The room was animated by hubbub. You caught
broken sentences here and there crossing each other, like the sounds that
had been frozen in the air, and set free by a thaw, according to the
veracious narrative of Baron Munchausen.
PLAYHOUSE PROPRIETOR.--"The theatre is the--"
SERIOUS GENTLEMAN.--"Plausible snare by which a population, at present
grave and well-disposed, is decoyed into becoming--"
EXCITED ADMIRER.--"A French poodle, sir, that plays at dominos like a--"
CREDULOUS CONJECTURER.--"Benevolent philanthropist, condescending to act
for the benefit of some distressed brother who is--"
PROPRIETOR of CITY CONCERT-ROOM.--"One hundred and twenty feet long by
forty, Mr. Mayor! Talk of that damp theatre, sir, you might as well talk
of the--"
Suddenly the door flew open, and pushing aside a clerk who designed to
announce him, in burst Mr. Chapman himself.
He had evidently expected to find the Mayor alone, for at the sight of
that throng he checked himself, and stood mute at the threshold. The
levee for a moment was no less surprised, and no less mute. But the good
folks soon recovered themselves. To many it was a pleasure to accost and
congratulate the man who the night before had occasioned to them emotions
so agreeable. Cordial smiles broke out; friendly hands were thrust
forth. Brief but hearty compliments, mingled with entreaties to renew
the performance to a larger audience, were showered round. The Comedian
stood hat in hand, mechanically passing his sleeve over its nap,
muttering half inaudibly, "You see before you a man," and turning his
single eye from one face to the other, as if strug gling to guess what
was meant, or where he was. The Mayor rose and came forward,--"My dear
friends," said he, mildly, "Mr. Chapman calls by appointment. Perhaps he
may have something to say to me confidentially."
The three serious gentlemen, who had hitherto remained aloof, eying Mr.
Chapman much as three inquisitors might have eyed a Jew, shook three
solemn heads, and set the example of retreat. The last to linger were
the rival proprietors of the theatre and the city concert-room. Each
whispered the stranger,--one the left ear, one the right. Each thrust
into his hand a printed paper. As the door closed on them the Comedian
let fall the papers: his arm drooped to his side; his whole frame seemed
to collapse. Hartopp took him by the hand, and led him gently to his own
armchair beside the table. The Comedian dropped on the chair, still
without speaking.
MR. HARTOPP.--"What is the matter? What has happened?"
WAIFE.--"She is very ill,--in a bad way; the doctor says so,--Dr. Gill."
MR. HARTOPP (feelingly).--"Your little girl in a bad way! Oh, no;
doctors always exaggerate in order to get more credit for the cure. Not
that I would disparage Dr. Gill, fellow-townsman, first-rate man. Still
't is the way with doctors to talk cheerfully if one is in danger, and to
look solemn if there is nothing to fear."
WAIFE.--"DO you think so: you have children of your own, sir?--of her
age, too?--Eh! eh!"
MR. HARTOPP.--"Yes; I know all about children,--better, I think, than
Mrs. H. does. What is the complaint?"
WAIFE.--"The doctor says it is low fever."
MR. HARTOPP.--"Caused by nervous excitement, perhaps."
WAIFE (looking up).--"Yes: that's what he says,--nervous excitement."
MR. HARTOPP.--"Clever sensitive children, subjected precociously to
emulation and emotion, are always liable to such maladies. My third
girl, Anna Maria, fell, into a low fever, caused by nervous excitement
in trying for school prizes."
WATFE.--"Did she die of it, sir?"
MR. HARTOPP (shuddering).--"Die! no! I removed her from school, set her
to take care of the poultry, forbade all French exercises, made her take
English exercises instead, and ride on a donkey. She's quite another
thing now, cheeks as red as an apple, and as firm as a cricket-ball."
WAIFE.--"I will keep poultry; I will buy a donkey. Oh, sir! you don't
think she will go to heaven yet, and leave me here?"
MR. HARTOPP.--"Not if you give her rest and quiet. But no excitement, no
exhibitions."
WAIFE (emptying his pockets on the table).--"Will you kindly count that
money, sir? Don't you think that would be enough to find her some pretty
lodgings hereabouts till she gets quite strong again? With green
fields,--she's fond of green fields and a farm-yard with poultry,--though
we were lodging a few days ago with a good woman who kept hens, and Sophy
did not seem to take to them much. A canary bird is more of a companion,
and--"
HARTOPP (interrupting).--"Ay--ay--and you! what would you do?"
WAIFE.--"Why, I and the dog would go away for a little while about the
country."
HARTOPP.--"Exhibiting?"
WAIFE.--"That money will not last forever, and what can we do, I and the
dog, in order to get more for her?"
HARTOPP (pressing his hand warmly).--"You are a good man, sir. I am sure
of it; you cannot have done things which you should be afraid to tell me.
Make me your confidant, and I may then find some employment fit for you,
and you need not separate yourself from your little girl."
WAIFE.--"Separate from her! I should only leave her for a few days at a
time till she gets well. This money would keep her,--how long? Two
months? three? how long? the doctor would not charge much."
HARTOPP.--"YOU will not confide in me then? At your age,--have you no
friends,--no one to speak a good word for you?"
WAIFE (jerking up his head with a haughty air).--"So--so! Who talks to
you about me, sir? I am speaking of my innocent child. Does she want a
good word spoken for her? Heaven has written it in her face."
Hartopp persisted no more; the excellent man was sincerely grieved at his
visitor's obstinate avoidance of the true question at issue; for the
Mayor could have found employment for a man of Waife's evident education
and talent. But such employment would entail responsibilites and trust.
How recommend to it a man of whose life and circumstances nothing could
be known,--a man without a character? And Waife interested him deeply.
We have all felt that there are some persons towards whom we are
attracted by a peculiar sympathy not to be explained,--a something in the
manner, the cut of the face, the tone of the voice. If there are fifty
applicants for a benefit in our gift, one of the fifty wins his way to
our preference at first sight, though with no better right to it than his
fellows. We can no more say why we like the man than we can say why we
fall in love with a woman in whom no one else would discover a charm.
"There is," says a Latin love-poet, "no why or wherefore in liking."
Hartopp, therefore, had taken, from the first moment, to Waife,--the
staid, respectable, thriving man, all muffled up from head to foot in the
whitest lawn of reputation,--to the wandering, shifty, tricksome
scatterling, who had not seemingly secured, through the course of a
life bordering upon age, a single certificate for good conduct. On his
hearthstone, beside his ledger-book, stood the Mayor, looking with a
respectful admiration that puzzled himself upon the forlorn creature, who
could give no reason why he should not be rather in the Gatesboro' parish
stocks than in its chief magistrate's easy-chair. Yet, were the Mayor's
sympathetic liking and respectful admiration wholly unaccountable? Runs
there not between one warm human heart and another the electric chain of
a secret understanding? In that maimed outcast, so stubbornly hard to
himself, so tremulously sensitive for his sick child, was there not the
majesty to which they who have learned that Nature has her nobles,
reverently bow the head! A man true to man's grave religion can no more
despise a life wrecked in all else, while a hallowing affection stands
out sublime through the rents and chinks of fortune, than he can profane
with rude mockery a temple in ruins,--if still left there the altar.
