If you will have a tree bear more fruit than it hath used to do, it is not anything you can do to the boughs, but it is the stirring of the earth, and putting new mould about the roots, that must work it.
LORD BACON’S Advancement of Learning, b. ii.
In a short time Harry’s health was so much improved, and consequently the strength and activity of his mind so much increased, that Hugh began to give him more exact mental operations to perform. But as if he had been a reader of Lord Bacon, which as yet he was not, and had learned from him that “wonder is the seed of knowledge,” he came, by a kind of sympathetic instinct, to the same conclusion practically, in the case of Harry. He tried to wake a question in him, by showing him something that would rouse his interest. The reply to this question might be the whole rudiments of a science.
Things themselves should lead to the science of them. If things are not interesting in themselves, how can any amount of knowledge about them be? To be sure, there is such a thing as a purely or abstractly intellectual interest—the pleasure of the mere operation of the intellect upon the signs of things; but this must spring from a highly exercised intellectual condition, and is not to be expected before the pleasures of intellectual motion have been experienced through the employment of its means for other ends. Whether this is a higher condition or not, is open to much disquisition.
One day Hugh was purposely engaged in taking the altitude of the highest turret of the house, with an old quadrant he had found in the library, when Harry came up.
“What are you doing, big brother?” said he; for now that he was quite at home with Hugh, there was a wonderful mixture of familiarity and respect in him, that was quite bewitching.
“Finding out how high your house is, little brother,” answered Hugh.
“How can you do it with that thing? Will it measure the height of other things besides the house?”
“Yes, the height of a mountain, or anything you like.”
“Do show me how.”
Hugh showed him as much of it as he could.
“But I don’t understand it.”
“Oh! that is quite another thing. To do that, you must learn a great many things—Euclid to begin with.”
That very afternoon Harry began Euclid, and soon found quite enough of interest on the road to the quadrant, to prevent him from feeling any tediousness in its length.
Of an afternoon Hugh had taken to reading Shakspere to Harry. Euphra was always a listener. On one occasion Harry said:
“I am so sorry, Mr. Sutherland, but I don’t understand the half of it. Sometimes when Euphra and you are laughing,—and sometimes when Euphra is crying,” added he, looking at her slyly, “I can’t understand what it is all about. Am I so very stupid, Mr. Sutherland?” And he almost cried himself.
“Not a bit of it, Harry, my boy; only you must learn a great many other things first.”
“How can I learn them? I am willing to learn anything. I don’t find it tire me now as it used.”
“There are many things necessary to understand Shakspere that I cannot teach you, and that some people never learn. Most of them will come of themselves. But of one thing you may be sure, Harry, that if you learn anything, whatever it be, you are so far nearer to understanding Shakspere.”
The same afternoon, when Harry had waked from his siesta, upon which Hugh still insisted, they went out for a walk in the fields. The sun was half way down the sky, but very hot and sultry.
“I wish we had our cave of straw to creep into now,” said Harry. “I felt exactly like the little field-mouse you read to me about in Burns’s poems, when we went in that morning, and found it all torn up, and half of it carried away. We have no place to go to now for a peculiar own place; and the consequence is, you have not told me any stories about the Romans for a whole week.”
“Well, Harry, is there any way of making another?”
“There’s no more straw lying about that I know of,” answered Harry; “and it won’t do to pull the inside out of a rick, I am afraid.”
“But don’t you think it would be pleasant to have a change now; and as we have lived underground, or say in the snow like the North people, try living in the air, like some of the South people?”
“Delightful!” cried Harry.—“A balloon?”
“No, not quite that. Don’t you think a nest would do?”
“Up in a tree?”
“Yes.”
Harry darted off for a run, as the only means of expressing his delight. When he came back, he said:
“When shall we begin, Mr. Sutherland?”
“We will go and look for a place at once; but I am not quite sure when we shall begin yet. I shall find out to-night, though.”
They left the fields, and went into the woods in the neighbourhood of the house, at the back. Here the trees had grown to a great size, some of them being very old indeed. They soon fixed upon a grotesque old oak as a proper tree in which to build their nest; and Harry, who, as well as Hugh, had a good deal of constructiveness in his nature, was so delighted, that the heat seemed to have no more influence upon him; and Hugh, fearful of the reaction, was compelled to restrain his gambols.
Pursuing their way through the dark warp of the wood, with its golden weft of crossing sunbeams, Hugh began to tell Harry the story of the killing of Cæsar by Brutus and the rest, filling up the account with portions from Shakspere. Fortunately, he was able to give the orations of Brutus and Antony in full. Harry was in ecstasy over the eloquence of the two men.
“Well, what language do you think they spoke, Harry?” said Hugh.
“Why,” said Harry, hesitating, “I suppose—” then, as if a sudden light broke upon him—“Latin of course. How strange!”
“Why strange?”
“That such men should talk such a dry, unpleasant language.”
“I allow it is a difficult language, Harry; and very ponderous and mechanical; but not necessarily dry or unpleasant. The Romans, you know, were particularly fond of law in everything; and so they made a great many laws for their language; or rather, it grew so, because they were of that sort. It was like their swords and armour generally, not very graceful, but very strong;—like their architecture too, Harry. Nobody can ever understand what a people is, without knowing its language. It is not only that we find all these stories about them in their language, but the language itself is more like them than anything else can be. Besides, Harry, I don’t believe you know anything about Latin yet.”
“I know all the declensions and conjugations.”
“But don’t you think it must have been a very different thing to hear it spoken?”
“Yes, to be sure—and by such men. But how ever could they speak it?”
“They spoke it just as you do English. It was as natural to them. But you cannot say you know anything about it, till you read what they wrote in it; till your ears delight in the sound of their poetry;—”
“Poetry?”
“Yes; and beautiful letters; and wise lessons; and histories and plays.”
“Oh! I should like you to teach me. Will it be as hard to learn always as it is now?”
“Certainly not. I am sure you will like it.”
“When will you begin me?”
“To-morrow. And if you get on pretty well, we will begin our nest, too, in the afternoon.”
“Oh, how kind you are! I will try very hard.”
“I am sure you will, Harry.”
Next morning, accordingly, Hugh did begin him, after a fashion of his own; namely, by giving him a short simple story to read, finding out all the words with him in the dictionary, and telling him what the terminations of the words signified; for he found that he had already forgotten a very great deal of what, according to Euphra, he had been thoroughly taught. No one can remember what is entirely uninteresting to him.
Hugh was as precise about the grammar of a language as any Scotch Professor of Humanity, old Prosody not excepted; but he thought it time enough to begin to that, when some interest in the words themselves should have been awakened in the mind of his pupil. He hated slovenliness as much as any one; but the question was, how best to arrive at thoroughness in the end, without losing the higher objects of study; and not how, at all risks, to commence teaching the lesson of thoroughness at once, and so waste on the shape of a pin-head the intellect which, properly directed, might arrive at the far more minute accuracies of a steam-engine. The fault of Euphra in teaching Harry, had been that, with a certain kind of tyrannical accuracy, she had determined to have the thing done—not merely decently and in order, but prudishly and pedantically; so that she deprived progress of the pleasure which ought naturally to attend it. She spoiled the walk to the distant outlook, by stopping at every step, not merely to pick flowers, but to botanise on the weeds, and to calculate the distance advanced. It is quite true that we ought to learn to do things irrespective of the reward; but plenty of opportunities will be given in the progress of life, and in much higher kinds of action, to exercise our sense of duty in severe loneliness. We have no right to turn intellectual exercises into pure operations of conscience: these ought to involve essential duty; although no doubt there is plenty of room for mingling duty with those; while, on the other hand, the highest act of suffering self-denial is not without its accompanying reward. Neither is there any exercise of the higher intellectual powers in learning the mere grammar of a language, necessary as it is for a means. And language having been made before grammar, a language must be in some measure understood, before its grammar can become intelligible.
Harry’s weak (though true and keen) life could not force its way into any channel. His was a nature essentially dependent on sympathy. It could flow into truth through another loving mind: left to itself, it could not find the way, and sank in the dry sand of ennui and self-imposed obligations. Euphra was utterly incapable of understanding him; and the boy had been dying for lack of sympathy, though neither he nor any one about him had suspected the fact.
There was a strange disproportion between his knowledge and his capacity. He was able, when his attention was directed, his gaze fixed, and his whole nature supported by Hugh, to see deep into many things, and his remarks were often strikingly original; but he was one of the most ignorant boys, for his years, that Hugh had ever come across. A long and severe illness, when he was just passing into boyhood, had thrown him back far into his childhood; and he was only now beginning to show that he had anything of the boy-life in him. Hence arose that unequal development which has been sufficiently evident in the story.
In the afternoon, they went to the wood, and found the tree they had chosen for their nest. To Harry’s intense admiration, Hugh, as he said, went up the tree like a squirrel, only he was too big for a bear even. Just one layer of foliage above the lowest branches, he came to a place where he thought there was a suitable foundation for the nest. From the ground Harry could scarcely see him, as, with an axe which he had borrowed for the purpose (for there was a carpenter’s work-shop on the premises), he cut away several small branches from three of the principal ones; and so had these three as rafters, ready dressed and placed, for the foundation of the nest. Having made some measurements, he descended; and repairing with Harry to the work-shop, procured some boarding and some tools, which Harry assisted in carrying to the tree. Ascending again, and drawing up his materials, by the help of Harry, with a piece of string, Hugh in a very little while had a level floor, four feet square, in the heart of the oak tree, quite invisible from below—buried in a cloud of green leaves. For greater safety, he fastened ropes as handrails all around it from one branch to another. And now nothing remained but to construct a bench to sit on, and such a stair as Harry could easily climb. The boy was quite restless with anxiety to get up and see the nest; and kept calling out constantly to know if he might not come up yet. At length Hugh allowed him to try; but the poor boy was not half strong enough to climb the tree without help. So Hugh descended, and with his aid Harry was soon standing on the new-built platform.
“I feel just like an eagle,” he cried; but here his voice faltered, and he was silent.
“What is the matter, Harry?” said his tutor.
“Oh, nothing,” replied he; “only I didn’t exactly know whereabouts we were till I got up here.”
“Whereabouts are we, then?”
“Close to the end of the Ghost’s Walk.”
“But you don’t mind that now, surely, Harry?”
“No, sir; that is, not so much as I used.”
“Shall I take all this down again, and build our nest somewhere else?”
“Oh, no, if you don’t think it matters. It would be a great pity, after you have taken so much trouble with it. Besides, I shall never be here without you; and I do not think I should be afraid of the ghost herself, if you were with me.”
Yet Harry shuddered involuntarily at the thought of his own daring speech.
“Very well, Harry, my boy; we will finish it here. Now, if you stand there, I will fasten a plank across here between these two stumps—no, that won’t do exactly. I must put a piece on to this one, to raise it to a level with the other—then we shall have a seat in a few minutes.”
Hammer and nails were busy again; and in a few minutes they sat down to enjoy the “soft pipling cold” which swung all the leaves about like little trap-doors that opened into the Infinite. Harry was highly contented. He drew a deep breath of satisfaction as, looking above and beneath and all about him, he saw that they were folded in an almost impenetrable net of foliage, through which nothing could steal into their sanctuary, save “the chartered libertine, the air,” and a few stray beams of the setting sun, filtering through the multitudinous leaves, from which they caught a green tint as they passed.
“Fancy yourself a fish,” said Hugh, “in the depth of a cavern of sea weed, which floats about in the slow swinging motion of the heavy waters.”
“What a funny notion!”
“Not so absurd as you may think, Harry; for just as some fishes crawl about on the bottom of the sea, so do we men at the bottom of an ocean of air; which, if it be a thinner one, is certainly a deeper one.”
“Then the birds are the swimming fishes, are they not?”
“Yes, to be sure.”
“And you and I are two mermen—doing what? Waiting for mother mermaid to give us our dinner. I am getting hungry. But it will be a long time before a mermaid gets up here, I am afraid.”
“That reminds me,” said Hugh, “that I must build a stair for you, Master Harry; for you are not merman enough to get up with a stroke of your scaly tail. So here goes. You can sit there till I fetch you.”
Nailing a little rude bracket here and there on the stem of the tree, just where Harry could avail himself of hand-hold as well, Hugh had soon finished a strangely irregular staircase, which it took Harry two or three times trying, to learn quite off.
I will fetch you a tooth-picker now from the farthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John’s foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham’s beard; do you any embassage to the Pigmies.
Much Ado about Nothing.
The next day, after dinner, Mr. Arnold said to the tutor:
“Well, Mr. Sutherland, how does Harry get on with his geography?”
Mr. Arnold, be it understood, had a weakness for geography.
“We have not done anything at that yet, Mr. Arnold.”
“Not done anything at geography! And the boy getting quite robust now! I am astonished, Mr. Sutherland. Why, when he was a mere child, he could repeat all the counties of England.”
“Perhaps that may be the reason for the decided distaste he shows for it now, Mr. Arnold. But I will begin to teach him at once, if you desire it.”
“I do desire it, Mr. Sutherland. A thorough geographical knowledge is essential to the education of a gentleman. Ask me any question you please, Mr. Sutherland, on the map of the world, or any of its divisions.”
Hugh asked a few questions, which Mr. Arnold answered at once.
“Pooh! pooh!” said he, “this is mere child’s play. Let me ask you some, Mr. Sutherland.”
His very first question posed Hugh, whose knowledge in this science was not by any means minute.
“I fear I am no gentleman,” said he, laughing; “but I can at least learn as well as teach. We shall begin to-morrow.”
“What books have you?”
“Oh! no books, if you please, just yet. If you are satisfied with Harry’s progress so far, let me have my own way in this too.”
“But geography does not seem your strong point.”
“No; but I may be able to teach it all the better from feeling the difficulties of a learner myself.”
“Well, you shall have a fair trial.”
Next morning Hugh and Harry went out for a walk to the top of a hill in the neighbourhood. When they reached it, Hugh took a small compass from his pocket, and set it on the ground, contemplating it and the horizon alternately.
“What are you doing, Mr. Sutherland?”
“I am trying to find the exact line that would go through my home,” said he.
“Is that funny little thing able to tell you?”
“Yes; this along with other things. Isn’t it curious, Harry, to have in my pocket a little thing with a kind of spirit in it, that understands the spirit that is in the big world, and always points to its North Pole?”
“Explain it to me.”
“It is nearly as much a mystery to me as to you.”
“Where is the North Pole?”
“Look, the little thing points to it.”
“But I will turn it away. Oh! it won’t go. It goes back and back, do what I will.”
“Yes, it will, if you turn it away all day long. Look, Harry, if you were to go straight on in this direction, you would come to a Laplander, harnessing his broad-horned reindeer to his sledge. He’s at it now, I daresay. If you were to go in this line exactly, you would go through the smoke and fire of a burning mountain in a land of ice. If you were to go this way, straight on, you would find yourself in the middle of a forest with a lion glaring at your feet, for it is dark night there now, and so hot! And over there, straight on, there is such a lovely sunset. The top of a snowy mountain is all pink with light, though the sun is down—oh! such colours all about, like fairyland! And there, there is a desert of sand, and a camel dying, and all his companions just disappearing on the horizon. And there, there is an awful sea, without a boat to be seen on it, dark and dismal, with huge rocks all about it, and waste borders of sand—so dreadful!”
“How do you know all this, Mr. Sutherland? You have never walked along those lines, I know, for you couldn’t.”
“Geography has taught me.”
“No, Mr. Sutherland!” said Harry, incredulously. “Well, shall we travel along this line, just across that crown of trees on the hill?”
“Yes, do let us.”
“Then,” said Hugh, drawing a telescope from his pocket, “this hill is henceforth Geography Point, and all the world lies round about it. Do you know we are in the very middle of the earth?”
“Are we, indeed?”
“Yes. Don’t you know any point you like to choose on a ball is the middle of it?”
“Oh! yes—of course.”
“Very well. What lies at the bottom of the hill down there?”
“Arnstead, to be sure.”
“And what beyond there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Look through here.”
“Oh! that must be the village we rode to yesterday—I forget the name of it.”
Hugh told him the name; and then made him look with the telescope all along the receding line to the trees on the opposite hill. Just as he caught them, a voice beside them said:
“What are you about, Harry?”
Hugh felt a glow of pleasure as the voice fell on his ear.
It was Euphra’s.
“Oh!” replied Harry, “Mr. Sutherland is teaching me geography with a telescope. It’s such fun!”
“He’s a wonderful tutor, that of yours, Harry!”
“Yes, isn’t he just? But,” Harry went on, turning to Hugh, “what are we to do now? We can’t get farther for that hill.”
“Ah! we must apply to your papa now, to lend us some of his beautiful maps. They will teach us what lies beyond that hill. And then we can read in some of his books about the places; and so go on and on, till we reach the beautiful, wide, restless sea; over which we must sail in spite of wind and tide—straight on and on, till we come to land again. But we must make a great many such journeys before we really know what sort of a place we are living in; and we shall have ever so many things to learn that will surprise us.”
“Oh! it will be nice!” cried Harry.
After a little more geographical talk, they put up their instruments, and began to descend the hill. Harry was in no need of Hugh’s back now, but Euphra was in need of his hand. In fact, she spelled for its support.
“How awkward of me! I am stumbling over the heather shamefully!”
She was, in fact, stumbling over her own dress, which she would not hold up. Hugh offered his hand; and her small one seemed quite content to be swallowed up in his large one.
“Why do you never let me put you on your horse?” said Hugh. “You always manage to prevent me somehow or other. The last time, I just turned my head, and, behold! when I looked, you were gathering your reins.”
“It is only a trick of independence, Hugh—Mr. Sutherland—I beg your pardon.”
I can make no excuse for Euphra, for she had positively never heard him called Hugh: there was no one to do so. But, the slip had not, therefore, the less effect; for it sounded as if she had been saying his name over and over again to herself.
“I beg your pardon,” repeated Euphra, hastily; for, as Hugh did not reply, she feared her arrow had swerved from its mark.
“For a sweet fault, Euphra—I beg your pardon—Miss Cameron.”
“You punish me with forgiveness,” returned she, with one of her sweetest looks.
Hugh could not help pressing the little hand.
Was the pressure returned? So slight, so airy was the touch, that it might have been only the throb of his own pulses, all consciously vital about the wonderful woman-hand that rested in his. If he had claimed it, she might easily have denied it, so ethereal and uncertain was it. Yet he believed in it. He never dreamed that she was exercising her skill upon him. What could be her object in bewitching a poor tutor? Ah! what indeed?
Meantime this much is certain, that she was drawing Hugh closer and closer to her side; that a soothing dream of delight had begun to steal over his spirit, soon to make it toss in feverous unrest—as the first effects of some poisons are like a dawn of tenfold strength. The mountain wind blew from her to him, sometimes sweeping her garments about him, and bathing him in their faint sweet odours—odours which somehow seemed to belong to her whom they had only last visited; sometimes, so kindly strong did it blow, compelling her, or at least giving her excuse enough, to leave his hand and cling closely to his arm. A fresh spring began to burst from the very bosom of what had seemed before a perfect summer. A spring to summer! What would the following summer be? Ah! and what the autumn? And what the winter? For if the summer be tenfold summer, then must the winter be tenfold winter.
But though knowledge is good for man, foreknowledge is not so good.
And, though Love be good, a tempest of it in the brain will not ripen the fruits like a soft steady wind, or waft the ships home to their desired haven.
Perhaps, what enslaved Hugh most, was the feeling that the damsel stooped to him, without knowing that she stooped. She seemed to him in every way above him. She knew so many things of which he was ignorant; could say such lovely things; could, he did not doubt, write lovely verses; could sing like an angel; (though Scotch songs are not of essentially angelic strain, nor Italian songs either, in general; and they were all that she could do); was mistress of a great rich wonderful house, with a history; and, more than all, was, or appeared to him to be—a beautiful woman. It was true that his family was as good as hers; but he had disowned his family—so his pride declared; and the same pride made him despise his present position, and look upon a tutor’s employment as—as—well, as other people look upon it; as a rather contemptible one in fact, especially for a young, powerful, six-foot fellow.
The influence of Euphrasia was not of the best upon him from the first; for it had greatly increased this feeling about his occupation. It could not affect his feelings towards Harry; so the boy did not suffer as yet. But it set him upon a very unprofitable kind of castle-building: he would be a soldier like his father; he would leave Arnstead, to revisit it with a sword by his side, and a Sir before his name. Sir Hugh Sutherland would be somebody even in the eyes of the master of Arnstead. Yes, a six-foot fellow, though he may be sensible in the main, is not, therefore, free from small vanities, especially if he be in love. But how leave Euphra?
Again I outrun my story.
Through me thou goest into the city of grief.
Of necessity, with so many shafts opened into the mountain of knowledge, a far greater amount of time must be devoted by Harry and his tutor to the working of the mine, than they had given hitherto. This made a considerable alteration in the intercourse of the youth and the lady; for, although Euphra was often present during school-hours, it must be said for Hugh that, during those hours, he paid almost all his attention to Harry; so much of it, indeed, that perhaps there was not enough left to please the lady. But she did not say so. She sat beside them in silence, occupied with her work, and saving up her glances for use. Now and then she would read; taking an opportunity sometimes, but not often, when a fitting pause occurred, to ask him to explain some passage about which she was in doubt. It must be conceded that such passages were well chosen for the purpose; for she was too wise to do her own intellect discredit by feigning a difficulty where she saw none; intellect being the only gift in others for which she was conscious of any reverence.
By-and-by she began to discontinue these visits to the schoolroom. Perhaps she found them dull. Perhaps—but we shall see.
One morning, in the course of their study—Euphra not present—Hugh had occasion to go from his own room, where, for the most part, they carried on the severer portion of their labours, down to the library for a book, to enlighten them upon some point on which they were in doubt. As he was passing an open door, Euphra’s voice called him. He entered, and found himself in her private sitting-room. He had not known before where it was.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Sutherland, for calling you, but I am at this moment in a difficulty. I cannot manage this line in the Inferno. Do help me.”
She moved the book towards him, as he now stood by her side, she remaining seated at her table. To his mortification, he was compelled to confess his utter ignorance of the language.
“Oh! I am disappointed,” said Euphra.
“Not so much as I am,” replied Hugh. “But could you spare me one or two of your Italian books?”
“With pleasure,” she answered, rising and going to her bookshelves.
“I want only a grammar, a dictionary, and a New Testament.”
“There they are,” she said, taking them down one after the other, and bringing them to him. “I daresay you will soon get up with poor stupid me.”
“I shall do my best to get within hearing of your voice, at least, in which Italian must be lovely.”
No reply, but a sudden droop of the head.
“But,” continued Hugh, “upon second thoughts, lest I should be compelled to remain dumb, or else annoy your delicate ear with discordant sounds, just give me one lesson in the pronunciation. Let me hear you read a little first.”
“With all my heart.”
Euphra began, and read delightfully; for she was an excellent Italian scholar. It was necessary that Hugh should look over the book. This was difficult while he remained standing, as she did not offer to lift it from the table. Gradually, therefore, and hardly knowing how, he settled into a chair by her side. Half-an-hour went by like a minute, as he listened to the silvery tones of her voice, breaking into a bell-like sound upon the double consonants of that sweet lady-tongue. Then it was his turn to read and be corrected, and read again and be again corrected. Another half-hour glided away, and yet another. But it must be confessed he made good use of the time—if only it had been his own to use; for at the end of it he could pronounce Italian very tolerably—well enough, at least, to keep him from fixing errors in his pronunciation, while studying the language alone. Suddenly he came to himself, and looked up as from a dream. Had she been bewitching him? He was in Euphra’s room—alone with her. And the door was shut—how or when? And—he looked at his watch—poor little Harry had been waiting his return from the library, for the last hour and a half. He was conscience-stricken. He gathered up the books hastily, thanked Euphra in the same hurried manner, and left the room with considerable disquietude, closing the door very gently, almost guiltily, behind him.
I am afraid Euphra had been perfectly aware that he knew nothing about Italian. Did she see her own eyes shine in the mirror before her, as he closed the door? Was she in love with him, then?
When Hugh returned with the Italian books, instead of the encyclopædia he had gone to seek, he found Harry sitting where he had left him, with his arms and head on the table, fast asleep.
“Poor boy!” said Hugh to himself; but he could not help feeling glad he was asleep. He stole out of the room again, passed the fatal door with a longing pain, found the volume of his quest in the library, and, returning with it, sat down beside Harry. There he sat till he awoke.
When he did awake at last, it was almost time for luncheon. The shame-faced boy was exceedingly penitent for what was no fault, while Hugh could not relieve him by confessing his. He could only say:
“It was my fault, Harry dear. I stayed away too long. You were so nicely asleep, I would not wake you. You will not need a siesta, that is all.”
He was ashamed of himself, as he uttered the false words to the true-hearted child. But this, alas! was not the end of it all.
Desirous of learning the language, but far more desirous of commending himself to Euphra, Hugh began in downright earnest. That very evening, he felt that he had a little hold of the language. Harry was left to his own resources. Nor was there any harm in this in itself: Hugh had a right to part of every day for his own uses. But then, he had been with Harry almost every evening, or a great part of it, and the boy missed him much; for he was not yet self-dependent. He would have gone to Euphrasia, but somehow she happened to be engaged that evening. So he took refuge in the library, where, in the desolation of his spirit, Polexander began, almost immediately, to exercise its old dreary fascination upon him. Although he had not opened the book since Hugh had requested him to put it away, yet he had not given up the intention of finishing it some day; and now he took it down, and opened it listlessly, with the intention of doing something towards the gradual redeeming of the pledge he had given to himself. But he found it more irksome than ever. Still he read on; till at length he could discover no meaning at all in the sentences. Then he began to doubt whether he had read the words. He fixed his attention by main force on every individual word; but even then he began to doubt whether he could say he had read the words, for he might have missed seeing some of the letters composing each word. He grew so nervous and miserable over it, almost counting every letter, that at last he burst into tears, and threw the book down.
His intellect, which in itself was excellent, was quite of the parasitic order, requiring to wind itself about a stronger intellect, to keep itself in the region of fresh air and possible growth. Left to itself, its weak stem could not raise it above the ground: it would grow and mass upon the earth, till it decayed and corrupted, for lack of room, light, and air. But, of course, there was no danger in the meantime. This was but the passing sadness of an occasional loneliness.
He crept to Hugh’s room, and received an invitation to enter, in answer to his gentle knock; but Hugh was so absorbed in his new study, that he hardly took any notice of him, and Harry found it almost as dreary here as in the study. He would have gone out, but a drizzling rain was falling; and he shrank into himself at the thought of the Ghost’s Walk. The dinner-bell was a welcome summons.
Hugh, inspirited by the reaction from close attention, by the presence of Euphra, and by the desire to make himself generally agreeable, which sprung from the consciousness of having done wrong, talked almost brilliantly, delighting Euphra, overcoming Harry with reverent astonishment, and even interesting slow Mr. Arnold. With the latter Hugh had been gradually becoming a favourite; partly because he had discovered in him what he considered high-minded sentiments; for, however stupid and conventional Mr. Arnold might be, he had a foundation of sterling worthiness of character. Euphra, instead of showing any jealousy of this growing friendliness, favoured it in every way in her power, and now and then alluded to it in her conversations with Hugh, as affording her great satisfaction.
“I am so glad he likes you!” she would say.
“Why should she be glad?” thought Hugh.
This gentle claim of a kind of property in him, added considerably to the strength of the attraction that drew him towards her, as towards the centre of his spiritual gravitation; if indeed that could be called spiritual which had so little of the element of moral or spiritual admiration, or even approval, mingled with it. He never felt that Euphra was good. He only felt that she drew him with a vague force of feminine sovereignty—a charm which he could no more resist or explain, than the iron could the attraction of the loadstone. Neither could he have said, had he really considered the matter, that she was beautiful—only that she often, very often, looked beautiful. I suspect if she had been rather ugly, it would have been all the same for Hugh.
He pursued his Italian studies with a singleness of aim and effort that carried him on rapidly. He asked no assistance from Euphra, and said nothing to her about his progress. But he was so absorbed in it, that it drew him still further from his pupil. Of course he went out with him, walking or riding every day that the weather would permit; and he had regular school hours with him within doors. But during the latter, while Harry was doing something on his slate, or writing, or learning some lesson (which kind of work happened oftener now than he could have approved of), he would take up his Italian; and, notwithstanding Harry’s quiet hints that he had finished what had been set him, remain buried in it for a long time. When he woke at last to the necessity of taking some notice of the boy, he would only appoint him something else to occupy him again, so as to leave himself free to follow his new bent. Now and then he would become aware of his blameable neglect, and make a feeble struggle to rectify what seemed to be growing into a habit—and one of the worst for a tutor; but he gradually sank back into the mire, for mire it was, comforting himself with the resolution that as soon as he was able to read Italian without absolutely spelling his way, he would let Euphra see what progress he had made, and then return with renewed energy to Harry’s education, keeping up his own new accomplishment by more moderate exercise therein. It must not be supposed, however, that a long course of time passed in this way. At the end of a fortnight, he thought he might venture to request Euphra to show him the passage which had perplexed her. This time he knew where she was—in her own room; for his mind had begun to haunt her whereabouts. He knocked at her door, heard the silvery, thrilling, happy sound, “Come in;” and entered trembling.
“Would you show me the passage in Dante that perplexed you the other day?”
Euphra looked a little surprised; but got the book and pointed it out at once.
Hugh glanced at it. His superior acquaintance with the general forms of language enabled him, after finding two words in Euphra’s larger dictionary, to explain it, to her immediate satisfaction.
“You astonish me,” said Euphra.
“Latin gives me an advantage, you see,” said Hugh modestly.
“It seems to be very wonderful, nevertheless.”
These were sweet sounds to Hugh’s ear. He had gained his end. And she hers.
“Well,” she said, “I have just come upon another passage that perplexes me not a little. Will you try your powers upon that for me?”
So saying, she proceeded to find it.
“It is school-time,” said Hugh “I fear I must not wait now.”
“Pooh! pooh! Don’t make a pedagogue of yourself. You know you are here more as a guardian—big brother, you know—to the dear child. By the way, I am rather afraid you are working him a little more than his constitution will stand.”
“Do you think so?” returned Hugh quite willing to be convinced. “I should be very sorry.”
“This is the passage,” said Euphra.
Hugh sat down once more at the table beside her. He found this morsel considerably tougher than the last. But at length he succeeded in pulling it to pieces and reconstructing it in a simpler form for the lady. She was full of thanks and admiration. Naturally enough, they went on to the next line, and the next stanza, and the next and the next; till—shall I be believed?—they had read a whole canto of the poem. Euphra knew more words by a great many than Hugh; so that, what with her knowledge of the words, and his insight into the construction, they made rare progress.
“What a beautiful passage it is!” said Euphra.
“It is indeed,” responded Hugh; “I never read anything more beautiful.”
“I wonder if it would be possible to turn that into English. I should like to try.”
“You mean verse, of course?”
“To be sure.”
“Let us try, then. I will bring you mine when I have finished it. I fear it will take some time, though, to do it well. Shall it be in blank verse, or what?”
“Oh! don’t you think we had better keep the Terza Rima of the original?”
“As you please. It will add much to the difficulty.”
“Recreant knight! will you shrink from following where your lady leads?”
“Never! so help me, my good pen!” answered Hugh, and took his departure, with burning cheeks and a trembling at the heart. Alas! the morning was gone. Harry was not in his study: he sought and found him in the library, apparently buried in Polexander.
“I am so glad you are come,” said Harry; “I am so tired.”
“Why do you read that stupid book, then?”
“Oh! you know, I told you.”
“Tut! tut! nonsense! Put it away,” said Hugh, his dissatisfaction with himself making him cross with Harry, who felt, in consequence, ten times more desolate than before. He could not understand the change.
If it went ill before with the hours devoted to common labour, it went worse now. Hugh seized every gap of time, and widened its margins shamefully, in order to work at his translation. He found it very difficult to render the Italian in classical and poetic English. The three rhyming words, and the mode in which the stanzas are looped together, added greatly to the difficulty. Blank verse he would have found quite easy compared to this. But he would not blench. The thought of her praise, and of the yet better favour he might gain, spurred him on; and Harry was the sacrifice. But he would make it all up to him, when this was once over. Indeed, he would.
Thus he baked cakes of clay to choke the barking of Cerberian conscience. But it would growl notwithstanding.
The boy’s spirit was sinking; but Hugh did not or would not see it. His step grew less elastic. He became more listless, more like his former self—sauntering about with his hands in his pockets. And Hugh, of course, found himself caring less about him; for the thought of him, rousing as it did the sense of his own neglect, had become troublesome. Sometimes he even passed poor Harry without speaking to him.
Gradually, however, he grew still further into the favour of Mr. Arnold, until he seemed to have even acquired some influence with him. Mr. Arnold would go out riding with them himself sometimes, and express great satisfaction, not only with the way Harry sat his pony, for which he accorded Hugh the credit due to him, but with the way in which Hugh managed his own horse as well. Mr. Arnold was a good horseman, and his praise was especially grateful to Hugh, because Euphra was always near, and always heard it. I fear, however, that his progress in the good graces of Mr. Arnold, was, in a considerable degree, the result of the greater anxiety to please, which sprung from the consciousness of not deserving approbation. Pleasing was an easy substitute for well-doing. Not acceptable to himself, he had the greater desire to be acceptable to others; and so reflect the side-beams of a false approbation on himself—who needed true light and would be ill-provided for with any substitute. For a man who is received as a millionaire can hardly help feeling like one at times, even if he knows he has overdrawn his banker’s account. The necessity to Hugh’s nature of feeling right, drove him to this false mode of producing the false impression. If one only wants to feel virtuous, there are several royal roads to that end. But, fortunately, the end itself would be unsatisfactory if gained; while not one of these roads does more than pretend to lead even to that land of delusion.
The reaction in Hugh’s mind was sometimes torturing enough. But he had not strength to resist Euphra, and so reform.
Well or ill done, at length his translation was finished. So was Euphra’s. They exchanged papers for a private reading first; and arranged to meet afterwards, in order to compare criticisms.