A week or two passed by, and November was rapidly approaching. Things remained precisely as they were at the close of the last chapter: nothing fresh had occurred; no change had taken place. Tom Channing’s remark, though much cannot be said for its elegance, was indisputable in point of truth—that when a fellow was down, he was kept down, and every dog had a fling at him It was being exemplified in the case of Arthur. The money, so mysteriously conveyed to Mr. Galloway, had proved of little service towards clearing him; in fact, it had the contrary effect; and people openly expressed their opinion that it had come from himself or his friends. He wasdown; and it would take more than that to lift him up again.
Mr. Galloway kept his thoughts to himself, or had put them into his cash-box with the note, for he said nothing.
Roland Yorke did not imitate his example; he was almost as explosive over the present matter as he had been over the loss. It would have pleased him that Arthur should be declared innocent by public proclamation. Roland was in a most explosive frame of mind on another score, and that was the confinement to the office. In reality, he was not overworked; for Arthur managed to get through a great amount of it at home, which he took in regularly, morning after morning, to Mr. Galloway. Roland, however, thought he was, and his dissatisfaction was becoming unbearable. I do not think that Rolandcouldhave done a hard day’s work. To sit steadily to it for only a couple of hours appeared to be an absolute impossibility to his restless temperament. He must look off; he must talk; he must yawn; he must tilt his stool; he must take a slight interlude at balancing the ruler on his nose, or at other similar recreative and intellectual amusements; but, apply himself in earnest, he could not. Therefore there was little fear of Mr. Roland’s being overcome with the amount of work on hand.
But what told upon Roland was the confinement—I don’t mean upon his health, you know, but his temper. It had happened many a day since Jenkins’s absence, that Roland had never stirred from the office, except for his dinner. He must be there in good time in the morning—at the frightfully early hour of nine—and he often was not released until six. When he went to dinner at one, Mr. Galloway would say, “You must be back in half an hour, Yorke; I may have to go out.” Once or twice he had not gone to dinner until two or three o’clock, and then he was half dead with hunger. All this chafed poor Roland nearly beyond endurance.
Another cause was rendering Roland’s life not the most peaceful one. He was beginning to be seriously dunned for money. Careless in that, as he was in other things, improvident as was ever Lady Augusta, Roland rarely paid until he was compelled to do so. A very good hand was he at contracting debts, but a bad one at liquidating them. Roland did not intend to be dishonest. Were all his creditors standing around him, and a roll of bank-notes before him he would freely have paid them all; very probably, in his openheartedness, have made each creditor a present, over and above, for “his trouble.” But, failing the roll of notes, he only staved off the difficulties in the best way he could, and grew cross and ill-tempered on being applied to. His chief failing was his impulsive thoughtlessness. Often, when he had teased or worried Lady Augusta out of money, to satisfy a debt for which he was being pressed, that very money would be spent in some passing folly, arising with the impulse of the moment, before it had had time to reach the creditor. There are too many in the world like Roland Yorke.
Roland was late in the office one Monday evening, he and a lamp sharing it between them. He was in a terrible temper, and sat kicking his feet on the floor, as if the noise, for it might be heard in the street, would while away the time. He had nothing to do; the writing he had been about was positively finished; but he had to remain in, waiting for Mr. Galloway, who was absent, but had not left the office for the evening. He would have given the whole world to take his pipe out of his pocket and begin to smoke; but that pastime was so firmly forbidden in the office, that even Roland dared not disobey.
“There goes six of ‘em!” he uttered, as the cathedral clock rang out the hour, and his boots threatened to stave in the floor. “If I stand this life much longer, I’ll be shot! It’s enough to take the spirit out of a fellow; to wear the flesh off his bones; to afflict him with nervous fever. What an idiot I was to let my lady mother put me here! Better have stuck to those musty old lessons at school, and gone in for a parson! Why can’t Jenkins get well, and come back? He’s shirking it, that’s my belief. And why can’t Galloway have Arthur back? He might, if he pressed it! Talk of solitary confinement driving prisoners mad, at their precious model prisons, what else is this? I wish I could go mad for a week, if old Galloway might be punished for it! It’s worse than any prison, this office! At four o’clock he went out, and now it’s six, and I have not had a blessed soul put his nose inside the door to say, ‘How are you getting on?’ I’m a regular prisoner, and nothing else. Why doesn’t he—”
The complaint was cut short by the entrance of Mr. Galloway. Unconscious of the rebellious feelings of his clerk, he passed through the office to his own room, Roland’s rat-tat-to having ceased at his appearance. To find Roland drumming the floor with his feet was nothing unusual—rather moderate for him; Mr. Gallowayhadfound him doing it with his head. Two or three minutes elapsed, and Mr. Galloway came out again.
“You can shut up, Roland. And then, take these letters to the post. Put the desks straight first; what a mess you get them into. Is that will engrossed?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very well! Be here in time in the morning. Good night.”
“Good night, sir,” responded Roland. “Yes! it’s all very fine,” he went on, as he opened the desks, and shoved everything in with his hands, indiscriminately,en masse, which washisway of putting things straight. “‘Be here in time!’ Of course! No matter what time I am let off the previous evening. If I stand this long—”
Roland finished his sentence by an emphatic turn of the key of the office-door, which expressed quite as much as words could have done; for he was already out of the room, his hat on his head, and the letters in his hand. Calling out lustily for the housekeeper, he flung the key to her, and bounded off in the direction of the post-office.
His way lay past Mrs. Jenkins’s shop, which the maid had, for the hour, been left to attend to. She was doing it from a leaf taken out of Roland’s own book—standing outside the door, and gazing all ways. It suddenly struck Roland that he could not do better than pay Jenkins a visit, just to ascertain how long he meant to absent himself. In he darted, with his usual absence of hesitation, and went on to the parlour. There was no hurry for the letters; the post did not close until nine.
The little parlour, dark by day, looked very comfortable now. A bright fire, a bright lamp, and a well-spread tea-table, at which Mrs. Jenkins sat. More comfortable than Jenkins himself did, who lay back in his easy-chair, white and wan, meekly enjoying a lecture from his wife. He started from it at the appearance of Roland, bowing in his usual humble fashion, and smiling a glad welcome.
“I say, Jenkins, I have come to know how long you mean to leave us to ourselves?” was Roland’s greeting. “It’s too bad, you know. How d’ye do, Mrs. Jenkins? Don’t you look snug here? It’s a nasty cutting night, and I have to tramp all the way to the post-office.”
Free and easy Roland drew a chair forward on the opposite side of the hearth to Jenkins, Mrs. Jenkins and her good things being in the middle, and warmed his hands over the blaze. “Ugh!” he shivered, “I can’t bear these keen, easterly winds. It’s fine to be you, Jenkins! basking by a blazing fire, and junketing upon plates of buttered muffins!”
“Would you please to condescend to take a cup of tea with us, sir?” was Jenkins’s answer. “It is just ready.”
“I don’t care if I do,” said Roland. “There’s nothing I like better than buttered muffins. We get them sometimes at home; but there’s so many to eat at our house, that before a plate is well in, a dozen hands are snatching at it, and it’s emptied. Lady Augusta knows no more about comfort than a cow does, and shewillhave the whole tribe of young ones in to meals.”
“You’ll find these muffins different from what you get at home,” said Mrs. Jenkins, in her curt, snappish, but really not inhospitable way, as she handed the muffins to Roland. “I know what it is when things are left to servants, as they are at your place; they turn out uneatable—soddened things, with rancid butter, nine times out of ten, instead of good, wholesome fresh. Servants’ cooking won’t do for Jenkins now, and it never did for me.”
“These are good, though!” exclaimed Roland, eating away with intense satisfaction. “Have you got any more downstairs? Mrs. Jenkins, don’t I wish you could always toast muffins for me! Is that some ham?”
His eyes had caught a small dish of ham, in delicate slices, put there to tempt poor Jenkins. But he was growing beyond such tempting now, for his appetite wholly failed him. It was upon this point he had been undergoing Mrs. Jenkins’s displeasure when Roland interrupted them. The question led to an excellent opportunity for renewing the grievance, and she was too persistent a diplomatist to let it slip. Catching up the dish, and leaving her chair, she held it out before Roland’s eyes.
“Young Mr. Yorke, do you see anything the matter with that ham? Please to tell me.”
“I see that it looks uncommonly good,” replied Roland.
“Do you hear?” sharply ejaculated Mrs. Jenkins, turning short round upon her husband.
“My dear, I never said a word but what it was good; I never had any other thought,” returned he, with deprecation. “I only said that I could not eat it. I can’t—indeed, I can’t! My appetite is gone.”
Mrs. Jenkins put the dish down upon the table with a jerk. “That’s how he goes on,” said she to Roland. “It’s enough to wear a woman’s patience out! I get him muffins, I get him ham, I get him fowls, I get him fish, I get him puddings, I get him every conceivable nicety that I can think of, and not a thing will he touch. All the satisfaction I can get from him is, that ‘his stomach turns against food!’”
“I wish I could eat,” interposed Jenkins, mildly. “I have tried to do it till I can try no longer. I wish I could.”
“Will you take some of this ham, young Mr. Yorke?” she asked. “Hewon’t. He wants to know what scarcity of food is!”
“I’ll take it all, if you like,” said Roland. “If it’s going begging.”
Mrs. Jenkins accommodated him with a plate and knife and fork, and with some more muffins. Roland did ample justice to the whole, despatching it down with about six cups of good tea, well sugared and creamed. Jenkins looked on with satisfaction, and Mrs. Jenkins appeared to regard it in the light of a personal compliment, as chief of the commissariat department.
“And now,” said Roland, turning back to the fire, “when are you coming out again, Jenkins?”
Jenkins coughed—more in hesitation for an answer, than of necessity. “I am beginning to think, sir, that I shall not get out again at all,” he presently said.
“Holloa! I say, Jenkins, don’t go and talk that rubbish!” was Roland’s reply. “You know what I told you once, about that dropsy. I heard of a man that took it into his head to fancy himself dead. And he ordered a coffin, and lay down in it, and stopped in it for six days, only getting up at night to steal the bread and cheese! His folks couldn’t think, at first, where the loaves went to. You’ll be fancying the same, if you don’t mind!”
“If I could only get a little stronger, sir, instead of weaker, I should soon be at my duty again. I am anxious enough sir, as you may imagine, for there’s my salary, sir, coming to me as usual, and I doing nothing for it.”
“It’s just this, Jenkins, that if you don’t come back speedily, I shall take French leave, and be off some fine morning. I can’t stand it much longer. I can’t tell you how many blessed hours at a stretch am I in that office with no one to speak to. IwishI was at Port Natal!”
“Sir,” said Jenkins, thinking he would say a word of warning, in his kindly spirit: “I have heard that there’s nothing more deceptive than those foreign parts that people flock to when the rage arises for them. Many a man only goes out to starve and die.”
“Many a muff, you mean!” returned self-complaisant Roland. “I say, Jenkins, isn’t it a shame about Arthur Channing? Galloway has his money back from the very thief himself, as the letter said, and yet the old grumbler won’t speak out like a man, and say, ‘Shake hands, old fellow,’ and ‘I know you are innocent, and come back to the office again.’ Arthur would return, if he said that. See if I don’t start for Port Natal!”
“I wish Mr. Arthur was back again, sir. It would make me easier.”
“He sits, and stews, and frets, and worries his brains about that office, and how it gets on without him!” tartly interposed Mrs. Jenkins. “A sick man can’t expect to grow better, if he is to fret himself into fiddlestrings!”
“I wish,” repeated poor Jenkins in a dreamy sort of mood, his eyes fixed on the fire, and his thin hands clasped upon his knees: “I do wish Mr. Arthur was back. In a little while he’d quite replace me, and I should not be missed.”
“Hear him!” uttered Mrs. Jenkins. “That’s how he goes on!”
“Well,” concluded Roland, rising, and gathering up his letters, which he had deposited upon a side table, “if this is not a nice part of the world to live in, I don’t know what is! Arthur Channing kept down under Galloway’s shameful injustice; Jenkins making out that things are all over with him; and I driven off my head doing everybody’s work! Good night, Jenkins. Good night, Mrs. J. That was a stunning tea! I’ll come in again some night, when you have toasted muffins!”
A keen wind, blowing from the east, was booming through the streets of Helstonleigh, striking pitilessly the eyes and cheeks of the wayfarers, cutting thin forms nearly in two, and taking stout ones off their legs.
Blinded by the sharp dust, giving hard words to the wind, to the cold, to the post-office for not being nearer, to anything and everything, Roland Yorke dashed along, suffering nothing and no one to impede his progress. He flung the letters into the box at the post-office, when he reached that establishment, and then set off at the same pace back again.
Roland was in a state of inward commotion. He thought himself the most injured, the most hard-worked, the most-to-be-pitied fellow under the sun. The confinement in the office, with the additional work he had to get through there, was his chief grievance; and a grievance it really was to one of Roland’s temperament. When he had Arthur Channing and Jenkins for his companions in it, to whom he could talk as he pleased, and who did all the work, allowing Roland to do all the play, it had been tolerably bearable; but that state of things was changed, and Roland was feeling that he could bear it no longer.
Another thing that Roland would perhaps be allowed to bear no longer was—immunity from his debts.Theyhad grown on him latterly, as much as the work had. Careless Roland saw no way out of that difficulty, any more than he did out of the other, except by an emigration to that desired haven which had stereotyped itself on the retina of his imagination in colours of the brightest phantasy—Port Natal. For its own sake, Roland was hurrying to get to it, as well as that it might be convenient to do so.
“Look here,” said he to himself, as he tore along, “even if Carrick were to set me all clear and straight—and I dare say he might, if I told him the bother I am in—where would be the good? It would not forward me. I wouldn’t stop at Galloway’s another month to be made into a royal duke. If he’d take back Arthur with honours, and Jenkins came out of his cough and his thinness and returned, I don’t know but I might do violence to my inclination and remain. I can’t, as it is. I should go dead with the worry and the work.”
Roland paused, fighting for an instant with a puff of wind and dust. Then he resumed:
“I’d pay my debts if I could; but, if I can’t, what am I to do but leave them unpaid? Much better get the money from Carrick to start me off to Port Natal, and set me going there. Then, when I have made enough, I’ll send the cash to Arthur, and get him to settle up for me. I don’t want to cheat the poor wretches out of their money; I’d rather pay ‘em double than do that. Some of them work hard enough to get it: almost as hard as I do at Galloway’s; and they have a right to their own. In three months’ time after landing, I shall be able to do the thing liberally. I’ll make up my mind from to-night, and go: I know it will be all for the best. Besides, there’s the other thing.”
What the “other thing” might mean, Mr. Roland did not state more explicitly. He came to another pause, and then went on again.
“That’s settled. I’ll tell my lady to-night, and I’ll tell Galloway in the morning; and I’ll fix on the time for starting, and be off to London, and see what I can do with Carrick. Let’s see! I shall want to take out lots of things. I can get them in London. When Bagshaw went, he told me of about a thousand. I think I dotted them down somewhere: I must look. Rum odds and ends they were: I know frying-pans were amongst them, Carrick will go with me to buy them, if I ask him; and then he’ll pay, if it’s only out of politeness. Nobody sticks out for politeness more than Carrick. He—”
Roland’s castles in the air were suddenly cut short. He was passing a dark part near the cathedral, when a rough hand—rough in texture, not in motion—was laid upon his shoulder, and a peculiar piece of paper thrust upon him. The assailant was Hopper, the sheriff’s officer.
Roland flew into one of his passions. He divined what it was, perfectly well: nothing less than one of those little mandates from our Sovereign Lady the Queen, which, a short time back, had imperilled Hamish Channing. He repaid Hopper with a specimen of his tongue, and flung the writ back at him.
“Now, sir, where’s the good of your abusing me, as if it was my fault?” returned the man, in a tone of remonstrance. “I have had it in my pocket this three weeks, Mr. Yorke, and not a day but I could have served it on you: but I’m loth to trouble young gentlemen such as you, as I’m sure many of you in this town could say. I have got into displeasure with our folk about the delay in this very paper, and—in short, sir, I have not done it, till I was obliged.”
“You old preacher!” foamed Roland. “I have not tipped you with half-a-crown lately, and therefore you can see me!”
“Mr. Yorke,” said the man, earnestly, “if you had filled my hands with half-crowns yesterday, I must have done this to-day. I tell you, sir, I have got into a row with our people over it; and it’s the truth. Why don’t you, sir—if I may presume to give advice—tell your little embarrassments to your mother, the Lady Augusta? She’d be sure to see you through them.”
“How dare you mention the Lady Augusta to me?” thundered haughty Roland. “Is it fitting that the Lady Augusta’s name should be bandied in such transactions as these? Do you think I don’t know what’s due to her better than that? If I have got into embarrassment, I shall not drag my mother into it.”
“Well, sir, you know best. I did not mean to offend you, but the contrary. Mind, Mr. Roland Yorke!” added Hopper, pointing to the writ, which still lay where it had been flung: “you can leave it there if you choose, sir, but I have served it upon you.”
Hopper went his way. Roland caught up the paper, tore it to pieces with his strong hands, and tossed them after the man. The wind took up the quarrel, and scattered the pieces indiscriminately, right and left. Roland strode on.
“What a mercy that there’s a Port Natal to be off to!” was his comment.
Things were not particularly promising at home, when Roland entered, looking at them from a quiet, sociable point of view. Lady Augusta was spending the evening at the deanery, and the children, from Gerald downwards, were turning the general parlour into a bear-garden. Romping, quarrelling, shouting and screaming, they were really as unrestrained as so many young bears. It would often be no better when Lady Augusta was at home. How Gerald and Tod contrived to do their lessons amidst it was a marvel to every one. Roland administered a few cuffs, to enjoin silence, and then went out again, he did not much care where. His feet took him to the house of his friend, Knivett, with whom he spent a pleasant evening, the topics of conversation turning chiefly upon the glories of Port Natal, and Roland’s recent adventure with Hopper. Had anything been wanted to put the finishing touch to Roland’s resolution, that little adventure would have supplied it.
It was past ten when he returned home. The noisy throng had dispersed then, all except Gerald. Gerald had just accomplished his tasks, and was now gracefully enjoying a little repose before the fire; his head on the back of my lady’s low embroidered chair, and his feet extended on either hob.
“What’s for supper?” asked Roland, turning his eyes on the cloth, which bore traces that a party, and not a scrupulously tidy one, had already partaken of that meal.
“Bones,” said Gerald.
“Bones?” echoed Roland.
“Bones,” rejoined Gerald. “They made a show of broiling some downstairs, but they took good care to cut off the meat first. Where all the meat goes to in this house, I can’t think. If a good half of the leg of mutton didn’t go down from dinner to-day, I possessed no eyes.”
“They are not going to put me off with bones,” said Roland, ringing the bell. “When a man’s worked within an ace of his life, he must eat. Martha,”—when the maid appeared—“I want some supper.”
“There’s no meat in the house, sir. There were some broiled bo—”
“You may eat the bones yourself,” interrupted Roland. “I never saw such a house as this! Loads of provisions come into it, and yet there’s rarely anything to be had when it’s wanted. You must go and order me some oysters. Get four dozen. I am famished. If I hadn’t had a substantial tea, supplied me out of charity, I should be fainting before this! It’s a shame! I wonder my lady puts up with you two incapable servants.”
“There are no oysters to be had at this time, Mr. Roland,” returned Martha, who was accustomed to these interludes touching the housekeeping. “The shop shuts up at ten.”
Roland beat on the floor with the heel of his boot. Then he turned round fiercely to Martha. “Is therenothingin the house that’s eatable?”
“There’s an apple pie, sir.”
“Bring that, then. And while I am going into it, the cook can do me some eggs and ham.”
Gerald had turned round at this, angry in his turn, “If there’s an apple pie, Martha, why could you not have produced it for our supper? You know we were obliged to put up with cheese and butter!”
“Cook told me not to bring it up, Master Gerald. My lady gave no orders. Cook says if she made ten pies a day they’d get eaten, once you young gentlemen knew of their being in the house.”
“Well?” said Gerald. “She doesn’t provide them out of her own pocket.”
Roland paid his court to the apple pie, Gerald joining him. After it was finished, they kept the cook employed some time with the eggs and ham. Then Gerald, who had to be up betimes for morning school, went to bed; and I only hope he did not suffer from nightmare.
Roland took up his place before the fire, in the same chair and position vacated by Gerald. Thus he waited for Lady Augusta. It was not long before she came in.
“Come and sit down a bit, good mother,” said Roland. “I want to talk to you.”
“My dear, I am not in a talking humour,” she answered. “My head aches, and I shall be glad to get to bed. It was a stupid, humdrum evening.”
She was walking to the side table to light her bed-candle, but Roland interposed. He drew the couch close to the fire, settled his mother in it, and took his seat with her. She asked him what he had to say so particularly that night.
“I am going to tell you what it is. But don’t you fly out at me, mother dear,” he coaxingly added. “I find I can’t get along here at all, mother, and I shall be off to Port Natal.”
Lady Augusta did fly out—with a scream, and a start from her seat. Roland pulled her into it again.
“Now, mother, just listen to me quietly. I can’t bear my life at Galloway’s. I can’t do the work. If I stopped at it, I’m not sure but I should do something desperate. You wouldn’t like to see your son turn jockey, and ride in a pink silk jacket and yellow breeches on the race-course; and you wouldn’t like to see him enlist for a soldier, or run away for a sailor! Well, worse than that might come, if I stopped at Galloway’s. Taking it at the very best, I should only be worked into my grave.”
“I will not hear another word, Roland,” interrupted Lady Augusta. “How can you be so wicked and ungrateful?”
“What is there wicked in it?” asked Roland. “Besides, you don’t know all. I can’t tell you what I don’t owe in Helstonleigh, and I’ve not a sixpence to pay it with. You wouldn’t like to see me marched off to prison, mother.”
Lady Augusta gave another shriek.
“And there’s a third reason why I wish to be away,” went on Roland, drowning the noise. “But I’ll not go into that, because it concerns myself alone.”
Of course the announcement that it concerned himself alone, only made my lady the more inquisitive to hear it. She peremptorily ordered Roland to disclose it to her.
But Roland could be as peremptory as she, and he declined, in positive terms, to explain further.
“It would not afford you any pleasure, mother,” he said, “and I should not have mentioned it but as an additional reason why I must be off.”
“You unhappy boy! You have been doing something dreadful!”
“It’s not over-good,” acknowledged Roland. “Perhaps I’ll write you word all about it from London. I’ve not smothered William Yorke, or set old Galloway’s office on fire, and those respected gentlemen are my twobêtes noires. So don’t look so scared, mother.”
“Roland!” uttered Lady Augusta, as the fact struck her, “if you go off in this manner, all the money that was paid with you to Mr. Galloway will be lost! I might as well have sent it down the gutter.”
“So I said at the time,” answered cool Roland. “Never mind that, mother. What’s that paltry hundred or two, compared with the millions I shall make? And as to these folks that I owe money to—”
“They’ll be coming upon me,” interposed Lady Augusta. “Heaven knows,Ihave enough to pay.”
“They will do nothing of the sort,” said Roland. “You have no legal right to pay my debts. Not one of them but has been contracted since I was of age. If they come to you, tell them so.”
“Roland, Lord Carrick gave you money once or twice when he was here,” resumed Lady Augusta, “I know he did. What have you done with it all?”
“Money melts,” responded Roland. “Upon my word of honour, I do believe it must melt at times; it vanishes so quickly.”
My lady could not cavil at the assertion. She was only too much given to the same belief herself. Roland continued:
“In a little while—about three months, as I calculate—after my arrival at Port Natal, I shall be in a position to send funds home to pay what I owe; and be assured, I will faithfully send them. There is the finest opening, mother, at Port Natal! Fortunes are being made there daily. In a few years’ time I shall come home with my pockets lined, and shall settle down by you for life.”
“If I could only think the prospect was so good a one!” exclaimed Lady Augusta.
“It is good,” said Roland emphatically. “Why, mother, Port Natal is all the rage: hundreds are going out. Were there no reasons to urge me away, you would be doing the most unwise thing possible to stand in the light of my going. If I were at something that I liked, that I was not worked to death at; if I did not owe a shilling; if my prospects here, in short, were first-rate, and my life a bower of rose-leaves, I should do well to throw it all up for Port Natal.”
“But in what manner are these great fortunes made?” wondered Lady Augusta.
“Of course, I shall acquire all that information. Stuck in this know-nothing Helstonleigh, I can only state the fact that theyaremade. I dare say I can find an opening for one or two of the boys out there.”
Lady Augusta—persuadable as ever was a child—began to look upon the plan with less prejudiced eyes—as Roland would have styled it. As to Roland, so fully had he become imbued with the golden harvest to be gathered at Port Natal, that had an angel descended to undeceive him, he would have refused to listen.
“There will be the losing you, Roland,” said Lady Augusta, hesitating whether she should scold or cry.
“Law, what’s that?” returned Roland, slightingly. “You’ll get over that in a day, and return thanks that there’s one source of trouble less. Look here! If I were in the luck of having a good commission given me in some crack Indian regiment, would you not say, ‘Oh be joyful,’ and start me off at once? What are you the worse for George’s being away? Mother!” he added somewhat passionately, “wouldyou like to see me tied down for life to an old proctor’s office?”
“But, Roland, you cannot go out without money. There’ll be your outfit and your passage; and you can’t land with empty pockets.”
“As to an outfit,” said Roland, “you must not run your head upon such a one as George had. A few new shirts, and a pair or two of waterproof boots—that will be about all I shall want. I remember shirts and waterproof boots were mentioned by Bagshaw. What I shall chiefly want to buy will be tools, and household utensils: frying-pans, and items of that sort.”
“Frying-pans!” ejaculated Lady Augusta.
“I am sure frying-pans were mentioned,” answered Roland. “Perhaps it was only one, though, for private use. I’ll hunt up Bagshaw’s list, and look it over.”
“And where’s the money to come from?” repeated my lady.
“I shall get it of Lord Carrick. I know he’ll give me what I want. I often talked to him about Port Natal when he was here.”
“I had a letter from him to-day,” said Lady Augusta. “He will be returning to Ireland next week.”
“Will he, though?” uttered Roland, aroused by the information. “I have no time to lose, then.”
“Well, Roland I must hear more about this to-morrow, and consider it over,” said my lady, rising to retire. “I have not said yet you are to go, mind.”
“I shall go, whether you say it or not,” replied frank Roland. “And when I come home with my pockets lined, a rich man for life, the first thing I’ll buy shall be a case of diamonds for you.”
“Stupid boy!” said she laughing. “I shall be too old to wear diamonds then.”
“Oh no, you won’t.”
My lady gave him a hearty kiss, and went to bed and to sleep. Roland’s visions were not without their effect upon her, and she had a most delightful dream of driving about in a charming city, whose streets were paved with malachite marble, brilliant to look upon. How many times Roland had dreamt that Port Natal was paved withgold, he alone knew.
Had Roland been troubled with over-sensitiveness in regard to other people’s feelings, and felt himself at a loss how to broach the matter to Mr. Galloway, he might have been pleased to find that the way was, in a degree, paved to him. On the following morning Mr. Galloway was at the office considerably before his usual hour; consequently, before Roland Yorke. Upon looking over Roland’s work of the previous day, he found that a deed—a deed that was in a hurry, too—had been imperfectly drawn out, and would have to be done over again. The cause must have been sheer carelessness, and Mr. Galloway naturally felt angered. When the gentleman arrived, he told him what he thought of his conduct, winding up the reproaches with a declaration that Roland did him no service at all, and would be as well out of the office as in it.
“I am glad of that, sir,” was Roland’s answer. “What I was about to tell you will make no difference, then. I wish to leave, sir.”
“Do you?” retorted Mr. Galloway.
“I am going to leave, sir,” added Roland, rather improving upon the assertion. “I am going to Port Natal.”
Mr. Galloway was a little taken aback. “Going to where?” cried he.
“To Port Natal.”
“To Port Natal!” echoed Mr. Galloway in the most unbounded astonishment, for not an inkling of Roland’s long-thought-of project had ever reached him. “What on earth should you want there?”
“To make my fortune,” replied Roland.
“Oh!” said Mr. Galloway. “When do you start?”
“It is quite true, sir,” continued Roland. “Of course I could not go without informing you.”
“Do you start to-day?” repeated Mr. Galloway, in the same mocking tone.
“No, I don’t,” said Roland. “But Ishallstart, sir, before long, and I beg you to believe me. I have talked Lady Augusta over to the plan, and I shall get the money for it from Lord Carrick. I might drum on here all my life and never rise to be anything better than a proctor, besides having my life worked out of me; whereas, if I can get to Port Natal, my fortune’s made. Hundreds and thousands of enterprising spirits are emigrating there, and they are all going to make their fortunes.”
Had Mr. Galloway not been angry, he would have laughed out-right. “Yorke,” said he, “did you ever hear of a sickness that fell suddenly upon this kingdom, some years ago? It was called the gold fever. Hundreds and thousands, as you phrase it, caught the mania, and flocked out to the Australian gold-diggings, to ‘make their fortunes’ by picking up gold. Boy!”—laying his hand on Roland’s shoulder—“how many of those, think you, instead of making their fortunes, only went out TO DIE?”
“That was not Port Natal, sir.”
“It was not. But, unless some of you wild young men come to your senses, we shall have a second edition of the Australian madness at Port Natal. Nothing can be more futile than these visionary schemes, Roland Yorke; they are like the apples of Sodom—fair and promising to the eye, ashes to the taste. Do not you be deceived by them.”
“Onemustget on at Port Natal, sir.”
“If one does not get ‘off,’” returned Mr. Galloway, in a cynical tone that chafed Roland’s ear. “The stream that flocked out to the gold-diggings all thought they should get on—each individual was fully persuaded that he should come home in a year or two with a plum in each of his breeches pockets. Where one made his way, Roland—made wealth—many starved; died; vanished, it was not known how; were never heard of by their friends, or saw old England again. What good do you supposeyoucould do at Port Natal?”
“I intend to do a great deal,” said Roland.
“But suppose you found you could do none—suppose it, I say—what would become of you out in a strange place, without money, and without friends?”
“Well,” returned Roland, who was never at a loss for an answer: “if such an impossible thing as a failure were to turn up, I should come back to my Uncle Carrick, and make him start me in something else.”
“Ah!” mockingly observed Mr. Galloway, “a rolling stone gathers no moss. Meanwhile, Mr. Roland Yorke, suppose you come down from the clouds to your proper business. Draw out this deed again, and see if you can accomplish it to a little better purpose than you did yesterday.”
Roland, liking the tone less and less, sat down and grew sullen. “Don’t say I did not give you notice, sir,” he observed.
But Mr. Galloway vouchsafed no reply. Indeed, it may be questioned if he heard the remark, for he went into his own room at the moment Roland spoke, and shut the door after him.
“Mocking old caterpillar!” grumbled angry Roland. “No fortunes at Port Natal! I’d go off, if it was only to tantalizehim!”
Mrs. Jenkins had many virtues. Besides the cardinal one which has been particularly brought under the reader’s notice—that of keeping her husband in due subjection—she also possessed, in an eminent degree, the excellent quality of being a most active housewife. In fact, she had the bump of rule and order, and personally superintended everything—with hands and tongue.
Amongst other careful habits, was that of never letting any one put a finger on her best sitting-room, for the purpose of cleaning it, except herself. She called it her drawing-room—a small, pretty room over the shop, very well furnished. It was let to Mr. Harper, with the bedroom behind it. Had Lydia dared even to wipe the dust off a table, it might have cost her her place. Mrs. Jenkins was wont to slip her old buff dressing-gown over her clothes, after she was dressed in a morning, and take herself to this drawing-room. Twice a week it was carefully swept, and on those occasions a large green handkerchief, tied cornerwise upon Mrs. Jenkins’s head, to save her cap from dust, was added to her costume.
On the morning following Roland’s communication to Mr. Galloway, Mrs. Jenkins was thus occupied—a dust-pan in one hand, a short hand-broom in the other—for you may be sure she did not sweep her carpets with those long, slashing, tear-away brooms that wear out a carpet in six months—and the green kerchief adjusted gracefully over her ears—when she heard a man’s footsteps clattering up the stairs. In much astonishment as to who could have invaded the house at that hour, Mrs. Jenkins rose from her knees and flung open the door.
It was Roland Yorke, coming up at full speed, with a carpet-bag in his hand. “Whatever do you want?” exclaimed she. “Is anything the matter?”
“The matter is, that I want to say a word to Jenkins,” replied Roland. “I know he must be in bed, so I just ran straight through the shop and came up.”
“I’m sure you are very polite!” exclaimed Mrs. Jenkins. “For all you knew, I might have been in the room.”
“So you might!” cried easy Roland. “I never thought of that. I should not have swallowed you, Mrs. Jenkins. Take care! I have hardly a minute to spare. I shall lose the train.”
On he went, up the second flight of stairs, without the slightest hesitation, and into Jenkins’s room, ignoring the ceremony of knocking. Poor Jenkins, who had heard the colloquy, and recognized Roland’s voice, was waiting for him with wondering eyes.
“I am off, Jenkins,” said Roland, advancing and bending over the bed. “I wouldn’t go without just saying a word to you.”
“Off where, sir?” returned Jenkins, who could not have looked more bewildered had he been suddenly aroused from sleep.
“To Port Natal. I am sick and tired of everything here, so I’m off at last.”
Jenkins was struck dumb. Of course, the first thought that passed through his mind was Mr. Galloway’s discomfiture, unless he was prepared for it. “This is very sudden, sir!” he cried, when speech came to him. “Who is replacing you at the office?”
“No one,” replied Roland. “That’s the primest bit in the whole play. Galloway will know what work is, now. I told him yesterday morning that I should go, but he went into a tantrum, and didn’t take it in earnest. He pointed out to me about sixty things as my day’s work to-day, when he left the office last night; errands to go upon, and writings to do, and answers to give, and the office to mind! A glorious commotion there’ll be, when he finds it’s all thrown upon his own hands. He’ll see howhelikes work!”
Jenkins could do nothing but stare. Roland went on:
“I have just slipped round there now, to leave a message, with my compliments. It will turn his hair green when he hears it, and finds I am really gone. Do you feel any better, Jenkins?”
The question was put in a different tone; a soft, gentle tone—one in which Roland rarely spoke. He had never seen Jenkins look so ill as he was looking now.
“I shall never feel any better in this world, sir.”
“Well, give us your hand, Jenkins; I must be off. You are the only one, old fellow, that I have said good-bye to. You have been a good lot, Jenkins, and done things for me that other clerks would not. Good luck to you, old chap, whether you go into the next world, or whether you stop in this!”
“God bless you, Mr. Roland! God bless you everywhere!”
Roland leapt down the stairs. Mrs. Jenkins stood at the drawing-room door. “Good-bye,” said he to her. “You see I should not have had time to eat you. What d’ye call that thing you have got upon your head, Mrs. Jenkins? Only wear it to church next Sunday, and you’ll set the fashion.”
Away he tore to the station. The first person he saw there, officials excepted, was Hamish Channing, who had gone to it for the purpose of seeing a friend off by the train. The second, was Lady Augusta Yorke.
Hamish he saw first, as he was turning away from getting his ticket. “Hamish,” said he, “you’ll tell Arthur that I did not come round to him for a last word; I shall write it from London.”
“Roland”—and Hamish spoke more gravely than was his wont—“you are starting upon a wild-goose scheme.”
“It isnot,” said Roland; “why do you preach up nonsense? If the worst came to the worst, I should come back to Carrick, and he’d set me on my legs again. I tell you, Hamish, I have a hundred reasons to urge me away from Helstonleigh.”
“Is this carpet-bag all your luggage?”
“All I am taking with me. The rest will be sent afterwards. Had I despatched the bellman about the town to announce my departure, I might have been stopped; so I have told no one, except poor harmless Jenkins.”
Of course it never occurred to proud and improvident Roland that it was possible to travel in any carriage but a first-class one. A first-class ticket he took, and a first-class compartment he entered. Fortunately it was an empty one. Hamish was filling up the door, talking to him, when sounds of distress were heard coming swiftly along the platform. Before Hamish had time to see what caused them, they were close upon his ear, and he found himself vehemently pushed aside, just as Roland himself might have pushed him. He turned with surprise. Panting, breathless, in tears, wailing out that she should never see her darling son again, stood the Lady Augusta Yorke.
What could be the cause of her appearing there in that state? The cause was Roland. On the previous day, he had held a second conversation with his mother, picturing the glories of Port Natal in colours so vivid, that the thought nearly crossed my lady’s mind, couldn’t she go too, and makeherfortune? She then inquired when he meant to start. “Oh,” answered Roland, carelessly, “between now and a week’s time.” The real fact was, that he contemplated being away on the following morning, before my lady was up. Roland’s motive was not an unfilial one. He knew how she excited herself over these partings; the violent, if short, grief to which she gave the reins; he remembered what it had been on the departure of his brother George. One other motive also held weight with him, and induced reticence. It was very desirable, remembering that he was not perfectly free from claims upon his purse, that he should depart, if not absolutelysub rosâ, still without its being extensively known, and that, he knew, would be next door to an impossibility, were the exact period confided to my lady. Lady Augusta Yorke could not have kept a secret for a single hour, had it been to save her life. Accordingly, she retired to rest in blissful ignorance: and in ignorance she might have remained until he was fairly off, but for Roland’s own want of caution. Up with daylight—and daylight, you know, does not surprise us too early when the dark days of November are at hand—Roland began turning over his drawers and closets, to pick out the few articles he meant to carry with him: the rest would be packed afterwards. This aroused his mother, whose room was underneath his, and she angrily wondered what he could be doing. Not for some time until after the noise had ceased did the faintest suspicion of the truth break upon her; and it might not then have done so, but for the sudden remembrance which rose in her mind of Roland’s particularly affectionate farewell the night before. Lady Augusta rang her bell.
“Do you know what Mr. Roland is about in his room?” she inquired, when Martha answered it.
“Mr. Roland is gone out, my lady,” was Martha’s reply. “He came down to the kitchen and drank a cup of coffee; and then went out with a carpet-bag.”
Lady Augusta became excited. “Where’s he gone?” she wildly asked.
“Somewhere by rail, I think, my lady. He said, as he drank his coffee, that he hoped our heads wouldn’t ache till he saw us again. Cook and me couldn’t think what he meant, my lady.”
My lady divined only too well. She gave a prolonged series of shrieks, jumped out of bed, flung on any clothes that came uppermost, and started in pursuit of him, to the intense wonder of Martha, and to the astonishment of Helstonleigh, as she flew wildly through the streets to the station. The sight of Hamish at a carriage-door guided her to her runagate son.
She sprang into the carriage—it was well, I say, that it was empty!—and overwhelmed him with a torrent of reproaches, all the while kissing and hugging him. Not two minutes could be given to their farewell, for the time was up, and Lady Augusta had to descend again, weeping bitterly.
“Take care of her home, Hamish,” said Roland, putting his head out. “Mother dear, you’ll live to say I have done well, yet. You’ll see me come home, one of these fine days, with a covered waggon after me, bringing the bags of gold.” Poor Roland!
The train steamed off, and Lady Augusta, to the discomfiture of Hamish, and the admiration of the porters and station boys, set off at full speed after it, wringing her hands, and tearing her hair, and sobbing and shrieking out that “She’d go—she’d go with it! that she should never see her darling boy again!” With some difficulty Hamish soothed her down to tolerable calmness, and put her into a fly.
They were scarcely beyond the station when she suddenly bent forward to Hamish, who sat on the seat opposite to her, and seized his hands. “Is it true that every one gets rich who goes to Port Natal?”
The question was a poser for sunny Hamish. He liked to scatter flowers in his path, rather than thorns. How could he tell that grieving woman, that Roland—careless, lazy, improvident Roland—would be almost sure to return in a worse plight than he had gone? “I have heard of people doing well at Port Natal,” he answered; “and Roland is young and strong, and has years before him.”
“I cannot think how so much money can be made,” continued my lady, beginning to dry her tears. “There are no gold fields there, are there?”
“I think not,” said Hamish.
“They must trade, then, I suppose. And, goodness me! what does Roland know about trading? Nothing. He talks of taking out tools and frying-pans.”
“Frying-pans!” repeated Hamish, struck with the item.
“I am sure he said frying-pans. Oh dear!” sobbed Lady Augusta, “what a relief it would be if folks never had any children; or if boys did not possess wills of their own! Hamish, you have never given sorrow toyourmother! I feel that you have not!”
Hamish smiled at her. “Now you know, Lady Augusta, that your children are your dearest treasures,” cried he, soothingly. “You would be the most unhappy woman living if you had none.”
“Ah! you can’t judge, Mr. Hamish Channing. You have no children of your own.”
“No,” said Hamish, laughing, “but my turn may come some day. Dear Lady Augusta, if Roland has his faults, he has his good qualities. Look on the bright side of things. Look forward with hope to the time that you shall see him home safe and well again. It will be sure to come.”
“You speak as if you believed it would.”
“Of course I do,” said Hamish. “And every one finds me a true prophet.”
They were then passing the Hazledon Charity. At the iron gates of the inclosure, talking to an old man, stood the Rev. William Yorke. “Roland left a message for him!” exclaimed Hamish, half mockingly, as his eyes fell upon the clergyman.
Lady Augusta, impulse all over, suddenly put her head out at the window and stopped the fly. William Yorke, looking surprised to see who were its inmates, advanced to the door. The lady’s tears flowed afresh.
“He is gone, William! My darling, self-willed, troublesome boy is gone, and I shall, perhaps, never see him more, till I am an old woman.”
“Who is gone?” returned Mr. Yorke.
“Roland. Never was a mother so tried as I. He will soon be on the sea, ploughing his way to Port Natal. I wish there was no sea!—no Port Natals! He went off without saying a word to me, and he is GONE!”
Mr. Yorke, bewildered, turned his eyes on Hamish for explanation. He had never heard of the Port Natal project. Hamish nodded in confirmation.
“The best place for him,” said Mr. Yorke. “He must work for his bread, there, before he eats it.”
Lady Augusta shrieked. “How cruelly hard you are, William!”
“Not hard, Lady Augusta—kind,” he gently said. “If your boys were brought up to depend upon their own exertions, they would make better men.”
“You said you had a message for him from Roland,” resumed Lady Augusta, looking at Hamish.
Hamish smiled significantly. “Not much of one,” he said, and his lips, as he bent towards William Yorke, assumed an expression of sarcastic severity. “He merely requested me, after he was in the train, to give his love to the Rev. William Yorke, as a parting legacy.”
Either the words or the tone, probably the latter, struck on the Rev. William Yorke’s self-esteem, and flushed his cheek crimson. Since the rupture with Constance, Hamish, though not interfering in the remotest degree, had maintained a tone of quiet sarcasm to Mr. Yorke. And though Mr. Yorke did not like it, he could not prevent it.
“When does Mr. Channing return?” he abruptly asked of Hamish.
“We shall be expecting him shortly now.”
Lady Augusta gave the signal for the fly to drive on. William Yorke put his hand over the door, and took hers as the man began to whip up his horse.
“Do not grieve too much after him, Lady Augusta. It may prove to be the best day’s work Roland ever did. God has given him hands, and brains; and a good heart, as I verily believe. If he shall only learn their value out there, let his lines be ever so hard, he may come home a wise and a good man. One of my poor pensioners here said to me, not ten minutes ago, I was brought to know my Saviour, sir, through ‘hard lines.’ Lady Augusta, those ‘hard lines’ are never sent in vain.”