CHAPTER IV.
We had taken the precaution to send, the day before, to secure our due
complement of places--four in all, including one for Mrs. Primmins--in,
or upon, the fast family coach called the "Sun," which had lately been
set up for the special convenience of the neighborhood.
This luminary, rising in a town about seven miles distant from us,
described at first a very erratic orbit amidst the contiguous villages
before it finally struck into the high-road of enlightenment, and thence
performed its journey, in the full eyes of man, at the majestic pace of
six miles and a half an hour. My father with his pockets full of books,
and a quarto of "Gebelin on the Primitive World," for light reading,
under his arm; my mother with a little basket containing sandwiches, and
biscuits of her own baking; Mrs. Primmins, with a new umbrella purchased
for the occasion, and a bird-cage containing a canary endeared to her
not more by song than age and a severe pip through which she had
successfully nursed it; and I myself,--waited at the gates to welcome
the celestial visitor. The gardener, with a wheel-barrow full of boxes
and portmanteaus, stood a little in the van; and the footman, who was to
follow when lodgings had been found, had gone to a rising eminence to
watch the dawning of the expected "Sun," and apprise us of its approach
by the concerted signal of a handkerchief fixed to a stick.
The quaint old house looked at us mournfully from all its deserted
windows. The litter before its threshold and in its open hall; wisps of
straw or hay that had been used for packing; baskets and boxes that had
been examined and rejected; others, corded and piled, reserved to follow
with the footman; and the two heated and hurried serving-women left
behind, standing halfway between house and garden-gate, whispering to
each other, and looking as if they had not slept for weeks,--gave to a
scene, usually so trim and orderly, an aspect of pathetic abandonment
and desolation. The Genius of the place seemed to reproach us. I felt
the omens were against us, and turned my earnest gaze from the haunts
behind with a sigh, as the coach now drew up with all its grandeur. An
important personage, who, despite the heat of the day, was enveloped in
a vast superfluity of belcher, in the midst of which galloped a gilt
fox, and who rejoiced in the name of "guard," descended to inform us
politely that only three places, two inside and one out, were at our
disposal, the rest having been pre-engaged a fortnight before our orders
were received.
Now, as I knew that Mrs. Primmins was indispensable to the comforts of
my honored parents (the more so as she had once lived in London, and
knew all its ways), I suggested that she should take the outside seat,
and that I should perform the journey on foot,--a primitive mode of
transport which has its charms to a young man with stout limbs and gay
spirits. The guard's outstretched arm left my mother little time to
oppose this proposition, to which my father assented with a silent
squeeze of the hand. And having promised to join them at a family hotel
near the Strand, to which Mr. Squills had recommended them as peculiarly
genteel and quiet, and waved my last farewell to my poor mother, who
continued to stretch her meek face out of the window till the coach was
whirled off in a cloud like one of the Homeric heroes, I turned within,
to put up a few necessary articles in a small knapsack which I
remembered to have seen in the lumber-room, and which had appertained to
my maternal grandfather; and with that on my shoulder, and a strong
staff in my hand, I set off towards the great city at as brisk a pace as
if I were only bound to the next village. Accordingly, about noon I was
both tired and hungry; and seeing by the wayside one of those pretty
inns yet peculiar to England, but which, thanks to the railways, will
soon be amongst the things before the Flood, I sat down at a table under
some clipped limes, unbuckled my knapsack, and ordered my simple fare
with the dignity of one who, for the first time in his life, bespeaks
his own dinner and pays for it out of his own pocket.
While engaged on a rasher of bacon and a tankard of what the landlord
called "No mistake," two pedestrians, passing the same road which I had
traversed, paused, cast a simultaneous look at my occupation, and
induced no doubt by its allurements, seated themselves under the same
lime-trees, though at the farther end of the table. I surveyed the new-
comers with the curiosity natural to my years.
The elder of the two might have attained the age of thirty, though
sundry deep lines, and hues formerly florid and now faded, speaking of
fatigue, care, or dissipation, might have made him look somewhat older
than he was. There was nothing very prepossessing in his appearance.
He was dressed with a pretension ill suited to the costume appropriate
to a foot-traveller. His coat was pinched and padded; two enormous
pins, connected by a chain, decorated a very stiff stock of blue satin
dotted with yellow stars; his hands were cased in very dingy gloves
which had once been straw-colored, and the said hands played with a
whalebone cane surmounted by a formidable knob, which gave it the
appearance of a "life-pre server." As he took off a white napless hat,
which he wiped with great care and affection with the sleeve of his
right arm, a profusion of stiff curls instantly betrayed the art of man.
Like my landlord's ale, in that wig there was "no mistake;" it was
brought (after the fashion of the wigs we see in the popular effigies of
George IV. in his youth), low over his fore-head, and was raised at the
top. The wig had been oiled, and the oil had imbibed no small quantity
of dust; oil and dust had alike left their impression on the forehead
and cheeks of the wig's proprietor. For the rest, the expression of his
face was somewhat impudent and reckless, but not without a certain
drollery in the corners of his eyes.
The younger man was apparently about my own age,--a year or two older,
perhaps, judging rather from his set and sinewy frame than his boyish
countenance. And this last, boyish as it was, could not fail to command
the attention even of the most careless observer. It had not only the
darkness, but the character of the gipsy face, with large, brilliant
eyes, raven hair, long and wavy, but not curling; the features were
aquiline, but delicate, and when he spoke he showed teeth dazzling as
pearls. It was impossible not to admire the singular beauty of the
countenance; and yet it had that expression, at once stealthy and
fierce, which war with society has stamped upon the lineaments of the
race of which it reminded me. But, withal, there was somewhat of the
air of a gentleman in this young wayfarer. His dress consisted of a
black velveteen shooting-jacket, or rather short frock, with a broad
leathern strap at the waist, loose white trousers, and a foraging cap,
which he threw carelessly on the table as he wiped his brow. Turning
round impatiently, and with some haughtiness, from his companion, he
surveyed me with a quick, observant flash of his piercing eyes, and then
stretched himself at length on the bench, and appeared either to dose or
muse, till, in obedience to his companion's orders, the board was spread
with all the cold meats the larder could supply.
"Beef!" said his companion, screwing a pinchbeck glass into his right
eye. "Beef,--mottled, covey; humph! Lamb,--oldish, ravish, muttony;
humph! Pie,--stalish. Veal?--no, pork. Ah! what will you have?"
"Help yourself," replied the young man peevishly, as he sat up, looked
disdainfully at the viands, and, after a long pause, tasted first one,
then the other, with many shrugs of the shoulders and muttered
exclamations of discontent. Suddenly he looked up, and called for
brandy; and to my surprise, and I fear admiration, he drank nearly half
a tumblerful of that poison undiluted, with a composure that spoke of
habitual use.
"Wrong!" said his companion, drawing the bottle to himself, and mixing
the alcohol in careful proportions with water. "Wrong! coats of
stomach soon wear out with that kind of clothes-brush. Better stick to
the 'yeasty foam,' as sweet Will says. That young gentleman sets you a
good example," and therewith the speaker nodded at me familiarly.
Inexperienced as I was, I surmised at once that it was his intention to
make acquaintance with the neighbor thus saluted. I was not deceived.
"Anything to tempt you, sir?" asked this social personage after a short
pause, and describing a semicircle with the point of his knife.
"I thank you, sir, but I have dined."
"What then? 'Break out into a second course of mischief,' as the Swan
recommends,--Swan of Avon, sir! No? 'Well, then, I charge you with
this cup of sack.' Are you going far, if I may take the liberty to
ask?"
"To London."
"Oh!" said the traveller, while his young companion lifted his eyes; and
I was again struck with their remarkable penetration and brilliancy.
"London is the best place in the world for a lad of spirit. See life
there,--'glass of fashion and mould of form.' Fond of the play, sir?"
"I never saw one."
"Possible!" cried the gentleman, dropping the handle of his knife, and
bringing up the point horizontally; "then, young man," he added
solemnly, "you have,--but I won't say what you have to see. I won't
say,--no, not if you could cover this table with golden guineas, and
exclaim, with the generous ardor so engaging in youth, 'Mr. Peacock,
these are yours if you will only say what I have to see!'"
I laughed outright. May I be forgiven for the boast, but I had the
reputation at school of a pleasant laugh. The young man's face grew
dark at the sound; he pushed back his plate and sighed.
"Why," continued his friend, "my companion here, who, I suppose, is
about your own age, he could tell you what a play is,--he could tell you
what life is. He has viewed the mantiers of the town; 'perused the
traders,' as the Swan poetically remarks. Have you not, my lad, eh?"
Thus directly appealed to, the boy looked up with a smile of scorn on
his lips,--
"Yes, I know what life is, and I say that life, like poverty, has
strange bed-fellows. Ask me what life is now, and I say a melodrama;
ask me what it is twenty years hence, and I shall say--"
"A farce?" put in his comrade.
"No, a tragedy,--or comedy as Moliere wrote it."
"And how is that?" I asked, interested and somewhat surprised at the
tone of my contemporary.
"Where the play ends in the triumph of the wittiest rogue. My friend
here has no chance!"
"'Praise from Sir Hubert Stanley,' hem--yes, Hal Peacock may be witty,
but he is no rogue."
"This was not exactly my meaning," said the boy, dryly.
"'A fico for your meaning,' as the Swan says.--Hallo, you sir! Bully
Host, clear the table--fresh tumblers--hot water--sugar--lemon--and--The
bottle's out! Smoke, sir?" and Mr. Peacock offered me a cigar.
Upon my refusal, he carefully twirled round a very uninviting specimen
of some fabulous havanna, moistened it all over, as a boa-constrictor
may do the ox he prepares for deglutition, bit off one end, and lighting
the other from a little machine for that purpose which he drew from his
pocket, he was soon absorbed in a vigorous effort (which the damp
inherent in the weed long resisted) to poison the surrounding
atmosphere. Therewith the young gentleman, either from emulation or in
self-defence, extracted from his own pouch a cigar-case of notable
elegance,--being of velvet, embroidered apparently by some fair hand,
for "From Juliet" was very legibly worked thereon,--selected a cigar of
better appearance than that in favor with his comrade, and seemed quite
as familiar with the tobacco as he had been with the brandy.
"Fast, sir, fast lad that," quoth Mr. Peacock, in the short gasps which
his resolute struggle with his uninviting victim alone permitted;
"nothing but [puff, puff] your true [suck, suck] syl--syl--sylva--does
for him. Out, by the Lord! the jaws of darkness have devoured it up;'"
and again Mr. Peacock applied to his phosphoric machine. This time
patience and perseverance succeeded, and the heart of the cigar
responded by a dull red spark (leaving the sides wholly untouched) to
the indefatigable ardor of its wooer.
This feat accomplished, Mr. Peacock exclaimed triumphantly: "And now,
what say you, my lads, to a game at cards? Three of us,--whist and a
dummy; nothing better, eh?" As he spoke, he produced from his coat-
pocket a red silk handkerchief, a bunch of keys, a nightcap, a tooth-
brush, a piece of shaving-soap, four lumps of sugar, the remains of a
bun, a razor, and a pack of cards. Selecting the last, and returning
its motley accompaniments to the abyss whence they had emerged, he
turned up, with a jerk of his thumb and finger, the knave of clubs, and
placing it on the top of the rest, slapped the cards emphatically on the
table.
"You are very good, but I don't know whist," said I.
"Not know whist--not been to a play--not smoke! Then pray tell me,
young man," said he majestically, and with a frown, "what on earth you
do know."
Much consternated by this direct appeal, and greatly ashamed of my
ignorance of the cardinal points of erudition in Mr. Peacock's
estimation, I hung my head and looked down.
"That is right," renewed Mr. Peacock, more benignly; "you have the
ingenuous shame of youth. It is promising, sir; 'lowliness is young
ambition's ladder,' as the Swan says. Mount the first step, and learn
whist,--sixpenny points to begin with."
Notwithstanding any newness in actual life, I had had the good fortune
to learn a little of the way before me, by those much-slandered guides
called novels,--works which are often to the inner world what maps are
to the outer; and sundry recollections of "Gil Blas" and the "Vicar of
Wakefield" came athwart me. I had no wish to emulate the worthy Moses,
and felt that I might not have even the shagreen spectacles to boast of
in my negotiations with this new Mr. Jenkinson. Accordingly, shaking my
head, I called for my bill. As I took out my purse,--knit by my
mother,--with one gold piece in one corner, and sundry silver ones in
the other, I saw that the eyes of Mr. Peacock twinkled.
"Poor spirit, sir! poor spirit, young man! 'This avarice sticks deep,'
as the Swan beautifully observes. 'Nothing venture, nothing have.'"
"Nothing have, nothing venture," I returned, plucking up spirit.
"Nothing have! Young sir, do you doubt my solidity--my capital--my
'golden joys'?"
"Sir, I spoke of myself. I am not rich enough to gamble."
"Gamble!" exclaimed Mr. Peacock, in virtuous indignation--" gamble!
what do you mean, sir? You insult me!" and he rose threateningly, and
slapped his white hat on his wig. "Pshaw! let him alone, Hal," said
the boy, contemptuously. "Sir, if he is impertinent, thrash him."
(This was to me.) "Impertinent! thrash!" exclaimed Mr. Peacock, waxing
very red; but catching the sneer on his companion's lip, he sat down,
and subsided into sullen silence.
Meanwhile I paid my bill. This duty--rarely a cheerful one--performed,
I looked round for my knapsack, and perceived that it was in the boy's
hands. He was very coolly reading the address, which, in case of
accidents, I prudently placed on it: "Pisistratus Caxton, Esq.,--
Hotel,--Street, Strand."
I took my knapsack from him, more surprised at such a breach of good
manners in a young gentleman who knew life so well, than I should have
been at a similar error on the part of Mr. Peacock. He made no apology,
but nodded farewell, and stretched himself at full length on the bench.
Mr. Peacock, now absorbed in a game of patience, vouchsafed no return to
my parting salutation, and in another moment I was alone on the high-
road. My thoughts turned long upon the young man I had left; mixed with
a sort of instinctive compassionate foreboding of an ill future for one
with such habits and in such companionship, I felt an involuntary
admiration, less even for his good looks than his ease, audacity, and
the careless superiority he assumed over a comrade so much older than
himself.
The day twas far gone when I saw the spires of a town at which I
intended to rest for the night. The horn of a coach behind made me turn
my head, and as the vehicle passed me, I saw on the outside Mr. Peacock,
still struggling with a cigar,--it could scarcely be the same,--and his
young friend stretched on the roof amongst the luggage, leaning his
handsome head on his hand, and apparently unobservant both of me and
every one else.
