He whisked out his swordHe whisked out his sword, and, with a shout to encourage the man behind the gate, made for his antagonists.[page164.
He whisked out his sword, and, with a shout to encourage the man behind the gate, made for his antagonists.
[page164.
But Dick’s blood was up, and he gave chase to them without pausing to see the condition of the man to whose relief he had come. The fugitives ran for some distance along the road, and then jumped the ditch where it was lowest and went headlong down the slope to the river. He followed hard upon them; but a small, though dark, cloud blotted out the moon for a couple of minutes, and he lost sight of them. When the moonlight came again he could only see two of the men; and they were still making for the river. Noting this, all his energies were strained in an effort to cut them off—he did not pause to consider the chance there was of the third man waiting in ambush to rush out on him when he should be passing.
He gained upon the fugitives when racing down the slope, and he was confident of getting within sword length of them when they should be stopped by the river. But the next dozen yards showed him that they would escape: a boat lay under the bank, and the fellows were making for it.
He gathered himself together at the brink of the river and made a rush at the hindmost man; but before Dick’s sword reached him, the fellow sprang forward and went headlong into the water. At the same instant the other man threw himself into the boat, and the force of his leap broke loose the boat’s mooring-line and sent the small craft half-way across the stream. Dick saw the man make a sudden grab over the side, and then a head appeared above the water, and an arm was stretched up to the gunwale. The boat drifted slowly across the stream, and Dick saw the two men get safely to the opposite bank, where they quietly seated themselves, the one who had been in the river squeezing the water from his hair.
“You rascals!” cried Dick, between his gasps for breath. “You rascals! I’ll live to see you hanged for to-night’s work.”
“You’ll do better if you save your breath to chase our employer,” said one of the men, and Dick knew from his speech that he was a common man.
“Who is your employer?” he shouted.
The man laughed, saying:
“Find him. He can’t be very far off.”
Dick ceased parleying with the fellow, and made his way slowly up the sloping ground, looking carefully in every direction for the third man, but not going out of his way to search for him, the truth being that he began to feel that he had had his share in this adventure, the origin of which was as completely unknown to him as its meaning.
He reached the road without catching a glimpse of the third fugitive; and then he sheathed his sword and began to retrace his steps toward the iron gate where the encounter had taken place. Now that the affair had reached a certain point he had become sufficiently interested in it to have a desire to know what it had all been about.
Before he had reached the place, however, he came upon a man in a rather dishevelled condition, engaged in binding up his right hand with shreds of his handkerchief.
He saw that the man was Mr. Walter Long.
“Heavens, Mr. Sheridan, it is to you I am indebted for my preservation from those rascals!” said Mr. Long.
Dick took off his hat in acknowledgment of the compliment.
“May I venture to hope that you have not received any severe injuries, sir? Your hand——”
Dick could see that there were some dark spots on the portions of the handkerchief that Mr. Long had managed to tie about his wrist and his knuckles.
“Only flesh wounds—scratches,” said Mr. Long. “But you followed the fellows, Mr. Sheridan? That was brave of you. My mind was greatly relieved when I saw you returning. I am glad that you were not so foolish as to rush into what may have been a trap. I suppose that, like rats—other vermin—they escaped by the river?”
“Two of them escaped by the river—I followed them down to the very brink, sir, and saw one of them safely into the water,” said Dick. “His companion went headlong into a boat and picked him up. The third I lost sight of shortly after they turned aside from the road.”
“Let them go,” said Mr. Long. “’Twas God’s mercy, Mr. Sheridan, that you were within earshot when I called for help. They attacked me on the road without a moment’s warning.”
“Footpads!” said Dick.
“H’m—perhaps footpads,” said Mr. Long doubtfully.
“I never heard that they infested this road, sir,” said Dick. “They must be the lowest in practice at this work. The chance passengers so far out of the city are not frequent after dusk.”
“I have my suspicions,” said Mr. Long. “I must have been followed by those scoundrels—or they may have lain in wait for me. I was supping with Mr. Lambton at his house on the Circus, and did not leave until late. Then I ventured to take a walk of a mile, tempted by the curiously beautiful night. I assure you I was not dreaming of an attack; but it came. Luckily the fellows rushed out upon me from the shrubbery along the carriage drive to that house, leaving the gate ajar. I had barely time to parry the thrusts of the foremost of the band, and by a disconcerting movement to get within the gate and close it. I saw that my only chance lay in keeping the bars between us. I will do them the justice to say that they also perceived that this was the case. But they only lacerated my hand and wrist.”
“You fought bravely and adroitly, sir,” cried Dick.
“At the same time, Mr. Sheridan, I know that if you had not come up at that instant I should now be a dead man,” said Mr. Long.
“Oh no, sir; you would most probably have run some of them through the body,” said Dick. “Cowardly rascals they must be! They showed themselves ready enough to run; they did not give me a chance of a single thrust at any one of them.”
“I sympathise with you, Mr. Sheridan,” said Mr. Long. “But your sword will be the less soiled. Five minutes—perhaps two—would have done for me. A gate with bars is no effective barrier where the small sword is concerned; and then—— Well, I’m not so young a man as I once was, sir; I was heartily glad at your coming on the scene.If you are walking back to the town I hope that I may claim your escort to my house.”
“I shall feel proud to walk with you, sir,” replied Dick, with alacrity. “But I venture to hope, sir, that you will see a surgeon before you retire.”
“I assure you there is no need, Mr. Sheridan. I have an excellent servant; there is scarce a wound that he could not heal—he even professes to deal with those of the heart; but there, I think, he professes overmuch. I should like to put his skill to the test; so if you have a friend who is in an evil case in any matter pertaining to that organ, you have only to let me know. By the way, Mr. Sheridan, it may sound ungenerously inquisitive on my part to inquire to what happy accident I owe my life? Is it a usual custom with you to take a rural walk after midnight? Pray, sir, rebuke my impertinence as it deserves by refusing to answer me, if it so please you.”
They had now begun to walk in the direction of Bath. The moon had risen high in the sky, and no cloud was visible. The night was so clear that Dick could not help feeling that the gentleman by his side saw his blushes that followed the inquiry. For the first time Dick perceived that he might have some little difficulty in explaining how it was that he came to be outside Bath on foot at that hour. When he had set out on his midnight stroll it had not occurred to him that he might be asked to give an explanation as to the impulse that had sent him forth. He hoped that Mr. Long did not notice his blush. It was only the suddenness of the question that had caused it.
“I took the walk because I had something to—to—think over,” he said, without any particular readiness.
“Then you did well to walk at this hour and on such a night,” said Mr. Long. “For myself, I can say that I have never yet faced any question that refused to be answered after a night’s walk and a night’s thoughts. Andnow I will place myself on a confessional level with you, by telling you before you ask—you are not so impertinent as to ask—if it be habitual with me to take a midnight walk? I will answer ‘No’ to that question, sir, and tell you that my walk was due to a certain want of confidence on my part in respect of Mr. Lambton’s excellent—too excellent French cook. I supped at Mr. Lambton’s, as I believe I mentioned?”
“Mr. Linley said you were going to Mr. Lambton’s house, sir,” said Dick.
“Oh, then you supped at the Linleys’?” said Mr. Long; “or did you merely meet Mr. Linley in the course of the night after he left me?”
“I supped with the family, sir. Mrs. Linley has had the kindness to treat me as one of the family. She expressed her regrets that you did not come to eat her pastry. She also expressed her want of confidence in Mr. Lambton’s cook.”
Mr. Long laughed.
“Our fears were not wholly groundless,” he said. “I think I made as frugal a supper as is possible in a house where a French cook possessing some determination and four new dishes reigns in the kitchen. And yet I own that an hour after supper, I—I—well, I felt that a brisk walk of a mile might at least prevent my forming an unjust judgment on the cook. On the whole, however, so far as I can gather, I am inclined to believe that Mr. Lambton’s cook is merciful as he is powerful. Neither you nor I, Mr. Sheridan, can know into what temptations to tyranny a first-class cook is led. He cannot but be conscious of his own power; and yet Mr. Lambton’s cook is, I understand, as approachable as if he were an ordinary person like one of ourselves. Nay, I have heard that some Cabinet Ministers are infinitely more frigid to their colleagues than he is to the other members of the Lambtonhousehold. There’s a man for you! And yet people say that the French nation—— But I have not asked you if Mrs. Linley’s pastry was as crisp as usual.”
“It could scarcely be surpassed, sir, even if it had been made under the superintendence of an university of cooks,” replied Dick.
“Then it was not to get rid of the thoughts impelled by your supper that you set out on your walk?” said Mr. Long. “I have heard it said that no man can be a poet who has not been subjected to a course of bad cooking. ’Tis a plausible theory. You have read the poem of the great Italian, Dante, Mr. Sheridan? Well, sir, will any one have the temerity to assert that it was not penned under the influence of a series of terrible suppers? ’Twas but one step further, you will see, from the supper to the Inferno? And there was Milton—well, he follows the Biblical account of the curse falling upon humanity owing to the indiscreet breakfast indulged in by the lady of the garden. And John Bunyan—a great poet, sir, except when he tried his hand at verse-making—his description of the terrors of that Slough of Despond was most certainly written under the influence of a dinner in Bedford gaol. But perhaps you do not think of being a poet, Mr. Sheridan?”
“I have had my dreams in that direction, sir,” said Dick, and once again he was led to hope that Mr. Long would not notice his blush. He could not understand how it was that Mr. Long succeeded in getting him to confess so much—more than he had ever confessed to another man.
“You have had your dreams, sir? I am glad to hear it. I would not give much for a lad who has not, before he is twenty, had dreams of becoming a poet. As a matter of fact, Mr. Sheridan, all men who do anything in the world are poets before they are twenty. The practical men are the men who have imagination; and to be a manof imagination is to be a poet. Now you, Mr. Sheridan, will do something in the world, I fancy.”
“Ah, sir, that was my hope—long ago—long ago.”
“Long ago—long—— Heavens! you talk of long ago, when you cannot have more than reached the age of twenty-one! Why, I am sixty, sir, and do not venture to speak of long ago. Your life is all before you, Mr. Sheridan; and permit me to say that ’twill be your own fault if it be not a noble life—a notable life ’tis bound to be, considering your parentage. Your mother was one of the most remarkable women of this period of the century. Her novels possess extraordinary merit; I say that, and I was a friend of Mr. Richardson. Your father’s genius is recognised. And think of the variety of his attainments. He is not only a great actor, he is a scholar as well; but if he were neither the one nor the other, he might still claim attention as a writer. His theories respecting the importance of elocution are valuable. One has only to hear you speak to become a convert to your father’s theories. If you some day obtain recognition as an orator, you will have to thank your father for his admirable training of your voice. You intend, of course, to enter yourself as a student for the Bar?”
“That was also my hope, sir; but I cannot persuade my father to give me his permission to my studying for the Bar.”
“What! does he wish you to enter the Church and become as distinguished as your grandfather—one of the few friends and the many victims of the Dean of St. Patrick’s?”
“He does not seem to think it necessary for me to enter any profession, Mr. Long. He says I have not sufficient ability to do credit to him and the family—’tis in my brother Charles he has placed his hopes. He has been striving for some time to secure for Charles an appointment under the Government.”
“I hope that he may be successful. And does he make no suggestion to you in regard to your future?”
“None whatever. ’Twas my dear mother who insisted on my being sent to Harrow, and I know that her intention was that I should in due time go to Oxford. Unhappily for us all, however, she died before her hopes were realised; and when my father returned from France with my sisters and brothers, I was taken from Harrow and brought here to waste my time. He seemed to think that I should be content to become a hanger-on of some fine gentleman. That is why he has always encouraged me to mingle only with people of title. Our bitterest quarrels—and we have had some, Mr. Long—have been about the Linleys. He has so exaggerated an opinion of the importance of our family, he thinks that it is not fitting that we should associate with the Linleys because they sing in public—because Mr. Linley is merely a teacher of music.”
“You amaze me, Mr. Sheridan! Has your father never asked himself wherein lies the difference between a man who teaches singing and one who teaches elocution? I had no idea that he was so narrow in his views. Why, he is worse than Dr. Johnson. ’Twas Dr. Johnson who declared that if your father got a pension from the king, ’twas time that he gave up his. That was a very narrow-minded theory to pretend to have—I say ‘pretend,’ for when your father got his pension, the good Doctor showed no intention of relinquishing his. Still, that contemptible Mr. Boswell had no right repeating in every direction what Johnson may have said in his haste. You have heard Mr. Garrick drawing on the fool for the entertainment of a company? Every one knows that it was Dr. Goldsmith’s humour to say to Johnson, ‘Why do you call me “Goldy,” sir—“Goldy,” when you are well aware that I haven’t even silver in my pocket?’ And yet Garrick got Boswell to tell us the story t’other night as proof positive of Dr. Goldsmith’s vanity.But this is beside the point, the point being that you would not give up the Linleys, however narrow-minded your father was. Well, Mr. Sheridan, I do not say that you were in the wrong. You have known Miss Linley for some years, have you not?”
“Ever since we were children, sir.”
“What! so long ago as that?” Mr. Long laughed, but quite pleasantly—not as some people would have laughed at that moment. “Then I hope, Mr. Sheridan, that you did not fail to offer the lady your congratulations on having accepted the offer of marriage made to her a few days ago? By the way, now that I come to think on it, the one to be congratulated in this case is not the lady, but the gentleman. Is not that your view of the matter?”
“I think, sir, that Miss Linley is the sweetest girl that lives in the world, and that any man whom she loves is fortunate above all his fellows.”
“And I agree with you, with all my soul. The man whom Elizabeth Linley loves is fortunate above all the rest of the world. What I am wondering just at this moment, Mr. Sheridan, is whether that man be you or I. Here we are at Millsom Street. I lodge in the last house, where I hope you will be polite enough to call to-morrow to make inquiries after my health. Pray do not forget that I owe my life to you. The man who saves the life of another accepts a fearful responsibility. You will find that out before you have done with me.”
He was holding Dick by the hand. But Dick heard nothing of his invitation delivered in so unconventional a formula. A previous phrase of Mr. Long’s had taken complete possession of his mind.
“I should like to know, sir, what you meant by saying—by suggesting that—that——”
Dick’s stammering was interrupted.
“Good heavens, Mr. Sheridan! you cannot be in earnestin demanding an explanation of anything I say at this hour?” cried Mr. Long, with uplifted hands. “This, sir, is accepting your responsibility a little too seriously. You will be genteel enough to pay me a visit to-morrow—that is, to-day, for ’tis more than an hour past midnight. In the meantime, may I beg of you to—to ... that is, not to ... ah, on second thoughts, I will not beg anything of you. Good-night, good-night.”
He took off his hat, and Dick mechanically raised his own. Mr. Long had turned down the street, but Dick still remained at the corner. Mr. Long had actually pulled the bell at the door of his house before Dick ran to his side.
“Mr. Long,” he cried, “it has just occurred to me that—that it might be as well for you to say nothing to Miss Linley about the little affair that happened to-night. You know that she is nervous, and to hear that an attack was made upon you might prostrate her.”
Mr. Long looked at him in a strangely penetrating way for some moments; then he said:
“You have given expression to the request which I was about to make to you just now. After a moment’s consideration I withheld it: I remembered that you were an Irishman, and therefore that there was no need for me to ask you to remain silent in regard to an incident of which you were the hero. Mr. Sheridan, I will respect your wishes. Miss Linley shall not, unless I find reason to act differently, hear of your heroism through me.”
“Oh, sir—heroism! that is too strong a word,” said Dick.
“Perhaps it is, considering that it was only my life that you saved. Well, we shall say your good-fortune. Will you accept the compromise?”
“Gladly, sir: I shall always think of the incident as the most fortunate of my life.”
“And I hope that neither of us, nor Miss Linley, will ever have occasion to think of it as otherwise; and so I wish you good-night again, my dear boy—my dear boy.”
He gave Dick his hand once more, and Dick felt his fingers pressed with more warmth than he had ever received from his own father.
He rather wished that Mr. Long was his father.
Dick Sheridan was conscious of a curious impression of elation while lying awake recalling the somewhat exciting incident in which he had played an important part. And when he thought over the details of the occurrence, he felt glad that he was elated. He did himself the justice to refrain from attributing his elation solely to the fact of his having put some rascals to flight, and his having followed them with a naked sword, anxious to run them through. Of course, he did not deny that he found pleasure in the reflection that he had made the rascals fly, and he was quite ready to allow that this pleasure was tinged with regret that he had not been able to get the point of his weapon in between some of their ribs. At the same time, however, he knew that he was sincerely glad that he had been able to save the life of the man who was taking Betsy Linley out of his life.
She had told him, when her hand was in his, that the joy of life was not in living for oneself, but in bringing happiness to others; and he had gone forth from her presence feeling that she had spoken the truth. It was a truth that he had often heard before from the lips of teachers of the elements of Christianity; but its enunciation had produced no greater impression on him than the words of such teachers usually do upon their hearers. All his thoughts had been for himself: seeking his own pleasure—seekingto cut a good figure before the eyes of the people who were around him. He had even gone to pay his visit to her in the same spirit. He was anxious to cut the figure of a cynical man of the world in her presence, and to show her that he was in no way touched by the announcement that she had given her promise to marry Mr. Long.
But in her presence he felt all the sweet influence of her nature; it surrounded him as the scent of a rose-garden surrounds one who comes among the flowers in June; he breathed it as one breathes the scent of the roses. The fragrance of her presence permeated his life. Her spirit became part of his spirit, and, sitting on the hill-slope, with the mystery of the moonlight about him, he felt himself to be a new man. The reality of the change that had come to him was soon put to the test. The chance had been given to him of saving the life of the man who was taking Betsy from him, and he had welcomed that chance. To be sure, when he had run upon the men with his naked sword, he had not known who it was that he was rescuing from his assailants; but he knew now, and he felt that the reflection that he had saved his life for Betsy was the greatest happiness he had ever known.
What would have happened if he had held back his hand at that time?
That question he asked of himself, and he had no difficulty in answering it. He knew that, unless some miracle had happened, nothing could have saved Mr. Long from being murdered. And in that case Betsy would be freed from the obligation which she had accepted.
He knew all this, and he thanked Heaven in all sincerity that he had been able to save the life of the man who stood between him and Betsy Linley. He shuddered at the thought of the bare possibility of his having failed to hear Mr. Long’s cries for help; and he felt rejoiced at the thought that he had done an unusual thing in wearing hissword when going to pay his visit to Betsy. It was not customary to wear swords in the afternoon at Bath, though, of course, they were carried at night. But, when setting out to pay his call, Dick had fastened on his sword, the fact being—though he tried not to include it in the sequence of his thoughts while lying awake that night—that he had meant to accept an invitation to supper and cards at which one of his fashionable friends had hinted the previous evening. After offering Betsy his congratulations, and making a few worldly-wise remarks on the absurdity of marriage, it had been his intention to go to one of the Assembly Rooms, and thence to the supper-party; and, as an early return home was not among his calculations, he felt that it would be prudent to wear his sword.
What a lucky chance it was that he had been so prudent! (He had so successfully avoided thinking of his unworthy project that he had come to attribute his carrying of the sword to his own prudence and forethought.) Without a weapon, he himself, as well as Mr. Long, could hardly have escaped from the footpads, who were undoubtedly most desperate ruffians. And then, having settled the matter of his caution and forethought—two attributes which he had certainly not inherited, and which he could scarcely regard as inevitable to his nationality as an Irishman, from whatever source his intentions regarding the supper-party may have sprung—he went on to think of Mr. Long.
He had never exchanged more than half a dozen words with Mr. Long during the six months that the latter had been in Bath, and he had looked on him as quite an old fogey, possessing none of the brilliant gifts of a man of fashion. None of thebons motsof the dialogues of scandal which circulated in the Pump-Room in the morning and in the Assembly Rooms in the evening, having blown about the town during the day, were attributed to him. None of the dainty plums of malice—preserved in vinegar, notin sugar—which the ladies with the rouge and patches passed round in theirbonbonnièresat the card-tables, came from him; and therefore Dick had never thought of him except as a good-natured elderly gentleman. To have a reputation for good-nature was of itself quite sufficient to exclude any one from the most fashionable set in Bath.
It was really only when it was announced that he was the successful suitor for the hand of Miss Linley, that people began to notice Mr. Long, and then the form that their attention took consisted in their alluding to him as an old fogey, if not an old fool.
Dick noticed that it was mostly the rejected suitors who so alluded to him, and he thought that it showed an amazing amount of weakness on their part: they were simply advertising their own failure—he had said so to his friend Halhed the previous evening in the Long Room, and he made up his mind that, whatever might happen and whatever he might think, he would never betray his own chagrin by calling Mr. Long an old fool.
Of course he could not but feel that it was an act of folly for a man turned sixty to make up his mind to marry a beautiful girl not yet twenty; he thought that he was equal to taking a dispassionate view of the matter. But he would never be heard alluding to Mr. Long as an old fool. He himself was not such a young fool as to give himself credit for any generosity in maintaining an attitude of reticence on this question; he was only determined not to show the same weakness as his friends, who acknowledged Mr. Long to be their successful rival.
But now, after recalling the attitude of Mr. Long when recovering from the effects of the attack made upon him by the three footpads—after recalling the easy tone of his conversation, and the adroitness with which he had obtained from Dick a good deal of information about himself and his prospects, and more particularly his lack of prospects,Dick came to the conclusion that for the first time in his life he had been speaking to one who was indeed a man of the world—a man who understood his fellow men and who could be humorously tolerant of their weaknesses and their prejudices. He could not but feel, however, that among the attributes of a man of the world which he possessed, there was in parts of his conversation a certain element of the enigmatical. For instance, when almost at the point of parting he had said—— What were his exact words?
“The man whom Elizabeth Linley loves is fortunate.... I am wondering whether that man be you or I.”
Those were his very words, and they had puzzled Dick the moment they were uttered. They puzzled him much more now that he recalled them. They were certainly very strange words for such a man as Mr. Long to say at such a time as he had said them. Did they mean that he questioned whether Betsy loved him or Dick; or did he merely mean that he was uncertain whether he or Dick was the more fortunate in regard to some matter quite apart from the love of Elizabeth Linley—say, in the matter of age, or in respect of the adventure in which they had both been concerned? Did he mean that it was an open question whether the man who saves another man’s life or the one whose life has been saved is the more fortunate?
To be sure, his remark about the good-fortune of a man was connected solely with the question of the love of Elizabeth Linley, so that his saying that he wondered whether the fortunate man was himself or Dick, seemed to be simply equivalent to saying that he wondered whether Elizabeth Linley loved himself, whom she had promised to marry, or Dick, who was no more to her than other men. Still, it might be susceptible of a different meaning; for instance.... Great heavens! Could it be that Mr. Long was treating thus lightly the bare possibility that the girlwhom he hoped to marry had given all her love to another man?
He could not believe this of such a man as Mr. Long. No; Dick felt that his ear had been over-sensitive. He had allowed himself to be led into a tortuous course of thought, only because Mr. Long had made a pause of perhaps two seconds instead of four between his sentences. It would, he felt, be ridiculous for him to base a theory upon so shallow a foundation. It would be absurd for him to assume that Mr. Long meant to suggest anything more than a casual reflection on a topic worn threadbare in the pulpit—namely, the uncertainty of human happiness.
It was, however, one thing to assure himself that it would be unreasonable to suppose that Mr. Long meant to suggest anything but what was trite, but quite another to convince himself that his ear had played him false; and this was how it came about that he had the first sleepless night of his life, and that he startled his sisters by coming down in good time to breakfast. His appearance was, in fact, rather embarrassing to the housekeeper for the week: Alicia had heard him enter the house at so late an hour that she took it for granted he would not come down to breakfast before noon, and had given her instructions to the cook on this basis. Dick had to face an empty plate until his fish was made ready.
He inquired for his brother—was he the late one this morning?
“What! did not Charles tell you that he meant to go to the country?” asked Alicia.
“Not he,” replied Dick. “The country? Why should he go to the country at this time?”
“Why, he said that you advised him to do so,” cried Elizabeth. “You know what is the only reason he could have for flying from Bath just now. Poor Charlie! he feels that Betsy was not considerate toward him.”
Dick laughed. He had quite forgotten that he had counselled his brother to go away for a time. He had really been more in jest than in earnest in the matter; but Charles had taken him very seriously, and had gone off without an hour’s delay to a farmhouse eight miles out of Bath, on the Wells road. He was not slow to perceive what Dick had hinted at—that a gratifying degree of prominence might be given to his name if the fact became well known that he had been so greatly overcome by the news of Miss Linley’s having promised to marry another man as to make it impossible for him to continue living in the same town with her.
“Poor Charlie!” said the elder Miss Sheridan in a tone that was meant as a reproof to Dick for his levity—“poor Charlie! But we can keep the matter a secret; we need not add to his humiliation, Dick, by talking of his having gone away on account of Betsy’s treatment of him.”
Dick laughed more heartily still.
“My dear girl,” he cried, “your suggestion is well meant, but poor Charlie would not thank you if you were to act on it. Poor Charlie knows perfectly well that he has now got a chance of attaining such fame as may never come to him again so long as he lives. When the fickle Phyllis rejects Strephon’s advances and accepts those of Damon, the Pastoral that commemorates the event confers immortality upon Strephon the rejected, just as surely as if he had been the fortunate lover. I can assure you that Bath, and Oxford too, I doubt not, are just now crowded with Strephons anxious to be handed down to posterity as the rejected swains. Take my word for it, poor Charlie would only be chagrined if he thought that no notice whatever would be taken of his forlorn condition as the rejected swain. Good heavens! wait until Friday comes, and you scan the Poet’s Corner of theAdvertiser; if youdo not find poor Charlie making a bid for the immortality of the doleful Strephon, I am greatly mistaken.”
The girls stared at him.
“You are wrong—quite wrong, Dick,” cried the elder. “Yes, you are. Charlie begged of us to keep his departure a secret. He said he would not have it known for the world.”
Dick did not laugh again: on the contrary, he became solemn. He felt that it would be heartless on his part to make the attempt to undermine the simplicity of his sisters. But the fact that Charlie had taken such elaborate precautions to give publicity to the news of his departure caused Dick to have a higher opinion than he had up to that moment possessed of his brother’s knowledge of human nature.
And then, finding that Dick was silent—penitentially silent—the two girls thought that the opportunity was a fitting one to give expression to their views regarding the heartlessness of Betsy and the devotion of Charlie. They had seen Mr. Long, and were ready to assert that poor Charlie was quite as good as he was, without being nearly so old; and Miss Sheridan went so far as to suggest that the family of Sheridan were fortunate in that they were not called on to welcome Betsy Linley as a stepmother.
Dick began to think, after this remark, that perhaps he had done his sisters an injustice in assuming their entire simplicity.
Mrs. Abington was in her chairMrs. Abington was in her chair.[page185.
Mrs. Abington was in her chair.
[page185.
Mrs. Abington was in her chair. She had just been to see her friends at Bath-Easton, and was hoping that she would be in time for service at the Abbey. That was why she stopped Dick in the street. What did he think? would she be in time for the service? She would be quite content to accept Dick’s opinion on the subject.
Dick looked at his watch.
“Madam,” he said, after calculating a moment, “you will not be in time for the Confession, which seems rather a pity; but I promise you that you will be in good time for the Absolution, if you make haste, and that will be to your advantage.”
“Sir, you are a rude boor!” cried the lady very prettily.
“If so, madam, I am rude at my own expense,” said he. “My words implied a ‘Nunc Dimittis’.”
“Now that I come to think on’t, that is so,” said she. “But I am sure that you, being a man, must hold with me that the ideal Church is the one that grants absolution without insisting on confession.”
“I am a sound Churchman, Mrs. Abington,” said he; “I will not countenance the least suspicion of what is not orthodox.”
“Psha! sir, that is equivalent to a confession that you like your salads without vinegar,” said she—“your punch without lemon—your spice-cakes without spice—your charmer without a bit of Mother Eve.”
“Madam,” said he, “’tis now you who are orthodox—ay, up to the first chapter of Genesis; but for my part, I adore your sex, from Genesis until the Revelation comes.”
“The Revelation? Do you mean until the revealing of the woman or the Revelation of the Divine?”
“Mrs. Abington, I am orthodox: I cannot admit that there is any difference between the two.”
“You are a quibbler, I vow; but I would not hear your worst enemy accuse you of being orthodox.”
“You can silence such an aspersion, madam, by letting it be known that you extended your friendship to me.”
“More quibbling? I swear that ’tis a relief to have a simple chat with young Mr. Linley, after all this battledore and shuttlecock with you wits. Oh yes, Tom is a charming boy.”
“I am told that he can illustrate the progress of a passion from Genesis to the Revelation.”
“Ay, sir; but with the Apocryphal books left out.”
“You can hear passages from them read out in the Abbey.”
“He has made me wild to learn the violin. But, I fear, alas! that ’twill be too much for me.”
“Faith, Mrs. Abington, ’twill not be for want of strings to your bow,” cried Dick, dropping the tone of the man of fashion and assuming the good fellowship of the Irishman, even to his manner of raising his hat and bowing; he hoped that the hint would be taken by the Irish chairmen to lower the roof and resume their journey.
Mrs. Abington put up her hand to the roof.
“Tom is a charming boy,” she cried, smiling the enigmatical smile of Miss Prue. “Oh yes; ’twas you who said that his heart was buried in his violin.”
“I perceive that ’twas not a safe place of sepulture,” said Dick.
“You said the truth when you told me that his heart wasthere,” said she. “Yes, I can hear the poor thing wail to be released every time he draws his bow across the strings. You will come to see me at my lodgings, will you not, Mr. Sheridan?”
“I will wait until your heart is buried beside Tom’s within the frame of his fiddle; ’twere not safe else,” cried Dick. “Hasten to your Abbey, or you will miss even the Blessing.”
“Meantime, you will think out an epitaph to scratch into the varnish of the violin.”
“A simpleResurgamwill do, for, by the Lord Harry, your heart will not rest long in one place, you beautiful creature!” cried Dick, standing with his hat in his hand while the roof of the chair was lowered on its hinges, and the chairmen went off with their fair burden.
Dick made up his mind that he would be in no haste to visit her at her lodgings. She had made him somewhat afraid of her two nights before, when she had lapsed into sincerity in the Assembly Rooms, and he had not yet come to regard her as free from any element of danger to his peace of mind. He felt, however, that he had accused her wrongfully of the butterfly quality of fickleness: nearly forty-eight hours had passed since she had thought it worth while to captivate Tom Linley, and yet it seemed that she was still faithful to him.
But why should she think it worth her while to captivate Tom Linley?
Dick thought out this question while walking to Mr. Long’s house, and before he pulled the bell he had come to the conclusion that Mrs. Abington was merely adapting to her own purposes the advice which Angelo, the fencing-master, was accustomed to give to his pupils. “Have a bout with the foils every day of your life, if only for ten minutes with your little brother in the nursery,” was the advice which Angelo gave to pupils when urging on themthe need to keep in constant practice. Yes, Mrs. Abington must have heard him say that.
Tom Linley represented the young brother in the nursery. That was all very well, so long as the fencing was done with foils; but it would be an act of cruelty for an accomplished fencer to introduce rapiers into the nursery. He hoped that little brother Tom would come unscathed out of the encounter which represented to Mrs. Abington nothing more than a laudable desire to keep her hand in.
Dick found Mr. Long alone in his sitting-room. His left hand was rather more elaborately bandaged than it had been when Dick had seen it last. But Mr. Long assured him that the wounds were quite trifling—mere scratches, in fact, scarcely asking for the attention of a surgeon, although his valet had on his own responsibility called in an excellent young man, who could be trusted to do as little as possible to the wounds and so give them a chance of healing speedily, and who also could be trusted to hold his tongue in regard to the occurrence.
“I have been using the cudgel on my brains all the morning trying to invent some plausible excuse for carrying a bandaged hand for a day or two,” said Mr. Long; “but up to the present I cannot boast of the result. My dull ass will not mend his pace by beating. Can you come to my help in this matter, as you did in the matter that placed me in need of such a story? Come, Mr. Sheridan, you are a man of imagination and resource.”
“Alas, sir,” said Dick, “all that I can offer to do is to bear testimony to the truth of any inaccuracy you may find needful.”
“Whatever story we may invent, it will not be believed in Bath—so much is certain,” said Mr. Long.
“I begin to think that, after all, we might as well tell the truth,” said Dick.
“What! you think the case is so desperate as all that?” said Mr. Long.
“There is no better way of mystifying people than by telling the truth, especially when it sounds improbable,” said Dick.
“I give you my word, Mr. Sheridan, you seem to speak with the authority of one who had tried what you suggest. Perhaps you may, under the stress of circumstances, have been led into the tortuous paths of the truth. Well, I think that, on the whole, we had better brazen the matter out, and give all Bath a chance of disbelieving us. But if we do so, we must also be prepared with a story to account for our being on the road at so late an hour. Ah, you will find, Mr. Sheridan, that telling the truth necessitates a great deal of tergiversation.”
“I must confess, sir,” said Dick, “I could scarcely hope to be believed if I were to make the attempt to account for my midnight walk on the simple ground of the fineness of the night.”
“It would certainly be thought a very weak plea. Thank Heaven if I say that I supped at Mr. Lambton’s and thought it prudent to have a stroll afterwards, I will be believed—at any rate, by such as know that Mr. Lambton has a French cook.”
“Then I think it would be as well if we were to make an agreement not to mention my name in connection with the assault upon you; that will save the need for my thinking out a moderately plausible story to account for my presence on the scene.”
“What! you would have me face all Bath with the story of having beaten off three footpads single-handed? Oh no, Mr. Sheridan! Anything in reason I am quite willing to state, but I have still some respect left for our acquaintance in Bath, and I decline to lay such a trust in their credulity. Why, sir, Falstaff’s story of the knaves in Kendal Greenwould seem rational compared with mine! The wits would dub me Sir John the first day I appeared abroad after telling such a tale. And the lampooners—that pitiful tribe who fancy that possessing Pope’s scurrility is the same thing as possessing his genius—— Ah, I hear some of the doggerel—I could even make a quatrain or two myself on my own valour! Well, we shall not trouble ourselves further on this matter just now; we shall let our good friends take the first step. So soon as we hear what story they invent to account for my wounds, we shall know how much truth is needed; but we must economise our store. By the way, Mr. Sheridan, I wonder, if one of us had been killed last night, would Miss Linley be more distressed had it been you than if I had been the victim?”
The suddenness of Mr. Long’s remark produced upon Dick the same effect as his remark of the previous night had done—that remark which Dick had pondered over during his sleepless hours.
He had no reply ready for such a question as Mr. Long had suggested to him—unless, indeed, Mr. Long would accept his unreadiness as a reply—his unreadiness and the confused, downcast look on his face, of which he himself was painfully conscious.
Some time had passed before Dick recovered himself sufficiently to be able to glance at Mr. Long, and then the expression which Mr. Long wore did not tend to make him feel more at ease. The smile which Dick saw on his face was a curious one—a disconcerting one.
“My poor boy,” said Mr. Long, “I have no right to plague you with suggestions such as these. Still, I cannot help wondering if you are yet reconciled to the thought of Miss Linley’s having promised to marry me?”
“I am reconciled, sir,” said Dick in a low voice. “I was not so until I went to see her yesterday. I went, I may as well confess to you, Mr. Long, in a spirit of—of—no, notmockery; I could not think of myself falling so low as to have a desire to mock her—no; I only meant to show her that I did not mind—that I did not mind.”
“And all the time you were eating your heart out? My poor boy, I can appreciate what was in your mind, not merely because I am not without imagination, but because I have an excellent memory. But you saw her, and I do not think that you were quite the same man when you left her; I cannot understand any man remaining unchanged in the presence of that divine creature.”
“She changed me. She made me to look on life differently from the way in which I had previously thought of it. She made me to perceive what ’tis to have a soul. She made me see that the real life which is worthy to be lived by a man is—is——”
“You can feel what it is, that is enough,” said Mr. Long when Dick paused, lacking the words to express what was in his heart. “’Tis enough for a man to feel—only to the few is it given to put these feelings into words, and those few we call poets. The poet is the one who has the power to give expression to what the man feels. ’Tis doing an injustice to men to suggest, as some people do, that all the feeling is on the part of the poet. Have I interrupted your thoughts by anticipating you, Mr. Sheridan?”
“You have said what was on my mind and in my heart—to-day,” cried Dick. “I was a fool to make the attempt to define what I felt. I am not a poet.”
“I am not so sure of that. Our friend Mr. Linley will tell you that the pauses in music are quite as important as the combination of notes in interpreting the emotions; and you have made some eloquent and touching pauses, Mr. Sheridan. Believe me, my friend, those pauses did not speak in vain to me, and now ... well, you took that long walk in the mystery of the moonlight. Did that represent the final struggle with yourself, my boy? When you foundout that it was I whom you had rescued from death, there was nothing in your heart but satisfaction? You were glad that you had saved me for her?”
“God knows it—God knows it!” said Dick, with bent head.
“I knew it too, my boy. I knew that you had taken the first step on that path to the new life which that sweet girl opened up before your eyes—a life in which self plays but the part of the minister to the happiness of others. And I ... it may occur to you that I can make but an indifferent preacher on this subject, since it was I who asked Miss Linley to give me her promise. There are some people who say that marriage is the most pronounced form of selfishness in existence. I fear that in addition to being called by a considerable number of persons ‘an old fool,’ I am also called a ‘selfish old fool.’ Selfish; yes, they call me selfish because, appreciating the nature of that girl, and seeing how intolerable her position had become to her, mainly through the persecution of the very people who now call me selfish and ridiculous, I had the courage to ask her to give me the privilege of freeing her from surroundings that were stifling to her nature. Is the man who opens the door of its cage for the linnet impelled by selfish motives? I think that he is not. But in any case, the carping and criticism—the playful winks which I have seen exchanged between good people when I have passed with Miss Linley by my side—the suggestive nudges which I have noticed—I daresay you noticed them too——”
“I heard the remarks that were made when you appeared with her for the first time,” said Dick.
“I did not hear them; but I saw the expression on the faces of the groups—that was enough for me. I had no difficulty in translating that expression into words. But you, who know,—you who have learned something of the nature of that girl——”
“Since yesterday—only since yesterday, sir.”
“Even so—you, I say, knowing something of her nature, perceiving how her father had simply come to see in her the means of filling his purse—poor man! he was only acting according to his lights, and the nest of linnets takes much feeding—you, Mr. Sheridan, recognising the shrinking of that sweet creature from the public life which was being forced upon her, will, I think, not be hard upon me because I came forward to save her from all that was changing the beautiful spirit with which she was endowed by Heaven, into something commonplace—as commonplace as the musical education which her father was forcing upon her. She did not pay full attention to the dotted quavers, he told me one day in confidence, when I noticed the traces of tears upon her face. Dotted quavers! Good heavens! think of the position of the man who found fault with the song of the linnet on account of its inattention to the dotted quavers!... Her father understood as little of the spirituality of the linnet’s song as did the fashionable folk who crowded to her concerts, not because they loved the linnet’s song—not because it told them of the joy of the springtime come back to make the world a delight—no, but only because Fashion had decreed that it was fashionable to attend Miss Linley’s concerts.”
“Poor Betsy!”
“Poor Betsy! ay, and poor, poor Fashion! The child confided in me. So terrible an effect had that life to which she was condemned upon her that—you will scarce believe it—she was ready to become the prey of any adventurer who might promise to release her from it.”
“And I failed to see this—I failed to see this,” said Dick. His voice sounded like a moan of pain.
“You know the men who paid her attention—who were encouraged by her father; you know some of them,” continued Mr. Long. “One of them, who was reported to bethe owner of a fortune, found great favour in the eyes of her father. He obtained easy access to the house, and he might actually have prevailed upon her to run away with him, for there was no lack of promises with him, if I had not come here. It was to save her from him that I asked her to give me her promise; for I knew that he had a wife already.”
Dick started to his feet, his eyes blazing.
“The infamous hound!” he cried. “Who is he? What is his name? Only let me know what is his name, that I may kill him.”
“There is no need for me to mention his name,” said Mr. Long; “there is no immediate need for you to kill him or to give him a chance of killing you.”
“Can you sit there before me, and tell me that ’tis not the duty of every man to do his best to rid the world of such a ruffian?” cried Dick passionately.
“I will not take it upon me to define what is the duty of a man in certain circumstances,” said Mr. Long. “But I assure you that I should be sorry to go so far as to assert that the world would not be well rid of this particular ruffian; still, I know that the killing of him just now would be to overwhelm one who, we know, shrinks from even a publicity which is wholly honourable. There are doubtless many girls who retain so much of the feminine animal in their nature as causes them to delight to be made the subject of a fight between two men; that is—unhappily, it seems to me, but that may be because I do not understand all the principles of nature—an ordinary trait of the sex; but—you and I—ah, we know something of her, do we not?”
“But a fellow who set himself to bring about her ruin—— He is not still in Bath—you would not allow him to remain in Bath?”
“I have seen to that. I have reason to believe that he has fled. At any rate, he has not been seen in public sinceI gave him a hint, the purport of which he could scarcely mistake. We will talk no more of him. I only referred to him as an instance of the dangers which, I perceived, surrounded Miss Linley, and which led me to make a move for her protection. I have been judged harshly. I was prepared for that. Sometimes in this matter I have felt disposed to judge myself much more harshly than any one else might feel. I wonder if you think that I was justified in asking Miss Linley to give me her promise when I saw that she was anxious to escape from a life which was killing her—when I saw that she was anxious to save her sisters from the necessity to appear in public and to sing for money—when I saw that she was set on this, and on helping all the other members of her family. Do you think that I was justified in asking her for her promise to marry me, seeing all that I tell you I saw, and knowing something of her pure and self-sacrificing nature?”
Dick was overcome by his own thoughts; but through all the discord in which they enveloped him there rang out clearly one note:
“You saved her,” he said. “You saved her; that is all that I can think. Let me go away now.”
He had spoken with his head bent, but his voice did not falter. And then he leapt up from his chair and turned to the door.
“Do not go yet, my boy,” said Mr. Long. It was his voice that was faltering. “Do not go until I have said all that is on my mind to say to you.”
“Can I hear more, sir? Is there anything more to be said?”
“Not much, but still something.”
He motioned Dick back to his chair, and, after a pause, Dick resumed his seat.
“I saved her, you said,” continued Mr. Long. “It was in order to save her that I asked her for that promise. Is that as noble a motive as most men have when they ask a young woman to marry them? I think that it is, whatever any one who knows the facts of this matter as you and I know them may say. It may be said that it was despicable on my part to take advantage of the longing for freedom of this dear caged linnet of ours—that I took advantage of her inexperience of life to bind her down to a marriage that would mean to her a far worse bondage than that from which she hoped to escape.”
“I am not one of those who say so, Mr. Long.”
“I am certain of that. Still, she is a child, and I am an old man—— Ah, no! you need not be at the trouble to protest; I shall probably live for twenty years yet; but when she was born I was old enough to be her father. Can I expect to have the girl’s love of that dear girl? I am notso foolish as to entertain such a dream. I have her gratitude, her respect, her regard, everything except her love. That is impossible.”
“I do not know that it is impossible, sir. She is not as other girls are.”
“It is impossible, my boy; I know it. It must be impossible, because I have not asked her for her love. It is impossible for me to love her with the love of a lover—with the love that is love. I did not offer her love when I asked her for her promise.”
Dick looked at the man with something akin to wonderment in his eyes.
Mr. Long rose from his chair and slowly walked to and fro some half-dozen times. Then he went to one of the windows and looked out. On the pavement a large number of notable persons were strolling. Mr. Edmund Burke was there; he had arrived in Bath the previous evening, and he was walking with Sir Joshua Reynolds and Miss Theophila Palmer.
The voices of the crowd outside only seemed to increase the silence in the room.
But still Dick did not move from his place.
Then Mr. Long walked from the window to the chair which he had occupied. He looked for a long time at Dick, as if debating with himself what to say to him. The prolonged silence was almost embarrassing to the younger man; but he felt that he was not called on to speak. And still the elder man sat with his eyes fixed on him, but with his thoughts far away, and still the faint sound of the laughter and the voices in the Street came intermittently to the room.
“I have spoken somewhat enigmatically, Mr. Sheridan,” said Mr. Long after this long pause. “I shall do so no longer. I told you that it is impossible for me to offer Miss Linley the love which I know you deem impossiblethat any man should withhold from her. Why? you will ask. My answer to you is that I have loved. It is difficult to make some people believe that there is no past tense to the verb ‘To love’; but I do not think that I shall have such difficulty with you. The man who says, ‘I have loved,’ is saying, if he speak the truth, ‘I love.’ Mr. Sheridan, when I say to you, ‘I have loved,’ you know what I mean. It was close upon forty years ago that I found her; and time has dealt graciously with her; for while I have grown old, she is still young and joyous and sweet. The laugh of the girl still rings through my heart as it did forty years ago. There are no wrinkles on her fair face; there is in her expression nothing of that fear of growing old which I have seen and shuddered at in the faces of many women. Perpetual youth—perpetual youth. God’s best gift to any human being—it has been bestowed upon her by the goodness of God; for those who die young have been granted the gift of perpetual youth. Our wedding-day came, and on that very day she was borne to the church in her wedding-dress, and with the wedding-flowers about her. I stood beside her, and, instead of hearing the Service for the Dead spoken as it was that day, I heard the Marriage Service that was to have been said between us.... Forty years ago ... and she is still young—unchanged—untouched by the terrors of time; and I have been true to her—every day—every hour. I smile when I think of her, and I know that she is smiling in return; I am joyous at my table because I know that she is sitting opposite to me, and I can walk through the woodlands which surround my house, taking pleasure in observing all things of nature, feeling that she is by my side, sharing in my happiness.... My boy, you, I know, can understand how it is the truth that I have told you when I said that I could not ask our dear Betsy to love me because I could not offer her that love which is love.”
“Do not tell her that—if you wish her to be happy,” said Dick suddenly, almost bluntly.
Mr. Long laid his hand—it was his wounded hand—with great tenderness upon Dick’s shoulder.
“You have shown me by that remark that what you seek to bring about is her happiness,” said he. “That is what I aim at. Whatever becomes of us, she must be happy. Richard, take my word for it, this is the true love—the love that is immortal—the love in the image of which God created man, making him a little lower than the angels—this is the glory with which He crowns him. You, my dear boy, have taken one step toward that goal of glory if you have learned that love is spiritual and that its aim is not one’s own happiness but the happiness of another. You love Betsy Linley; and it is left for you to show what this love can accomplish in yourself. Love for love’s sake—let that be your motto. It will mean happiness to you, for it will mean everything that makes a man a man: the trampling down of all that is base in nature—the resisting of temptation—the facing of that stern discipline of life which alone makes life noble and worthy to be lived. And if she loves you——”
Dick started up.
“Ah, sir, for Heaven’s sake do not suggest that to me now!” he cried. “Can not you know that that is the thought which I have been doing my best to suppress—to beat down—to bury out of sight——”
“There is no need for me to withhold what I have said; she may love you, and that thought should be a grateful one to you. It should nerve you, as such a thought has nerved many men, to do something worthy of her love. Richard Sheridan, you would not have her love some one who is unworthy of her love. You would not have her love a man who is wanting in any of those elements that make a man worthy to be loved. Richard Sheridan, if she lovesyou ’tis for you to determine whether she loves a true man or one who is false to his manhood, which was made in the image of Godhood. This is what a woman’s love should mean to a man; and this is love’s reward, which comes to a man even though he may never hold in his arms the one whom he loves—the one by whom he is beloved. Dick, let this be my last word to you: whether that girl who is so dear to us comes to me or to you, if you love her truly ’twill be a source of good to you while you live, for your constant aim will be to live worthy not only of her love, but worthy to love her. That is all I have to say to you, and it is a good deal more than I have said to any man who lives. But she must be happy, Dick; that is the bond there is between you and me. We must make her happy, whether we do so by being near her or by being apart from her.”
He gave his hand to Dick, and the young man took it, and then left the room without another word. He had only a vague idea of the finality, so to speak, of what Mr. Long had said; and he knew that nothing that left him with such vagueness in his mind could be final. But Mr. Long had said enough to strengthen the impression which Dick had acquired of him the previous night.
A few days before, Dick, with his knowledge of the world, would have had no hesitation in ridiculing this principle of love for love’s sake which Mr. Long had impressed upon him; but now he was sensible for the first time in his life of the reality of all that Mr. Long had said on this subject. He became sensible of the spiritual element in love. Had he not just been made aware of its existence? Had he not just come from the presence of a man who had cherished a spiritual love through all the years of a long lifetime, until it had become a part of his life, influencing him in all his actions, as though it were a living thing?
As though it were a living thing? But it was surely aliving thing. This surely was the love which poets had sung of as being immortal! It was purely spiritual, and therefore immortal. It was cherished for its own sake, and the reward which it brought to one who was true to it came solely in the act of cherishing it. The consciousness of cherishing it—that was enough for such as were strong enough to cherish it for its own sake; to take it into one’s life, and to guard one’s life rigidly—jealously—because it is in one’s life; to guard one’s life for its sake as one guards the casket that contains a great treasure.
Dick felt that this was the sum of what Mr. Long had sought to impress upon him, and he also felt that this great truth had long ago been revealed to Betsy Linley. It was in the spirit of this spirit of love that she had kissed him the previous evening; and now he felt that he had no longing for any love but this. She had set his feet upon the way to this goal, and he was assured that should he falter, should he look back, she would be by his side to put a hand in his, to bid him take courage and press forward to that goal which she had pointed out to him.
He did not at that time make even an attempt to consider such questions as he would have suggested a few days before, to any one who might have come to him telling him all that Mr. Long had just said in his hearing. Mr. Long had encouraged him to love Betsy Linley—to continue loving her; and he had not shrunk from suggesting the possibility of the girl’s returning his love. A few days before Dick would have been inclined to ask any one who might have come to him telling him this, if Mr. Long was encouraging another man to love the girl whom he himself meant to marry. But now this seemed to him to be a point unworthy of a thought. So deeply impressed was he by what Mr. Long had just said to him, he could not give a thought to anything less spiritual. The splendid light that came from that heaven to which his eyes hadbeen directed, so dazzled him with its effulgence as to make him incapable of giving any attention to matters of detail.
It never occurred to him to ask himself if it was Mr. Long’s intention to marry Betsy immediately. Whatever answer might be given to such a question, it could not possibly affect the reality of the religion of love as stated by Mr. Long. Of this he was satisfied. He knew that whoever might marry Betsy Linley, his own love for her had become part of his life, and its influence upon his life was real.
He went to his home looking neither to the right hand nor the left, and when he reached his room he was conscious of very different thoughts from those which had been his a few mornings before, when he had thrown himself on his bed in a passion of tears after seeing, though but for a moment, Betsy by the side of Mr. Long in the gardens. At that time the pangs that he felt—the vexation that he felt—were due, in a large measure, to the blow which his vanity had sustained, and it was his vanity that had suggested to him, with a view of recovering its equilibrium, as it were, the advisability of his adopting the tone and playing therôleof a cynical man of the world, who has seen the foolishness—the ludicrous foolishness of what is called love.
But now—
Well, now he was kneeling by his bedside.