CHAPTER IVFATHER AND SONThe Count's old steward has seen all go to rest in the castle; the lords have left the banqueting-room, and the servants, who have been making merry in the hall, are long ere this sound asleep. It is the steward's custom to see all safe before he lights his lamp and retires to rest; but to-night he shades it carefully with a wrinkled hand that trembles strangely, and his white face peers into the darkness, as though he were about some deed of shame. He steals into the Ghost's Gallery, and creeps silently to the farther end. There is a dark object muffled in a cloak in the gloomiest corner, and the light from the steward's lamp reveals a fine young man, sleeping with that thorough abandonment which is only observable in those who are completely outwearied and overdone. It is some minutes ere the old man can wake him."My boy!" says he; "my boy, it is time for us to part. Hard, hard is it to be robbed of my son--robbed----" and the old man checks himself as though the word recalled some painful associations."Ay, father," was the reply, "you know our old Croatian proverb, 'He who steals is but a borrower.' Nevertheless, I do not wish the Austrians to 'borrow' me, in case I should never be returned; and it is unmannerly for the lieutenant to occupy the same quarters as the general. I must be off before dawn; but surely it cannot be midnight yet.""In less than an hour the day will break, my son. I have concealed you here because not a servant of the household dare set foot in the Ghost's Gallery till daylight, and you are safe; but twenty-four more hours must see you on the Danube, and you must come here no more. Oh, my boy! my boy!--lost to save me!--dishonoured that I might not be disgraced!--my boy! my boy!"--and the old man burst into a passion of weeping that seemed to convulse his very frame with agony.The son had more energy and self-command; his voice did not even shake as he soothed and quieted the old man with a protecting fondness like that of a parent for a child. "My father," said he, "there is no dishonour where there is no guilt. My first duty is to you, and were it to do again, I would do it. What? it was but a momentary qualm and a snatch at the box; andnowyou are safe. Father, I shall come back some day, and offer you a home. Fear not for me. I have itherein my breast, the stuff of which men make fortunes. I can rely upon myself. I can obey orders; and, father, when others are bewildered and confused, I cancommand. I feel it; I know it. Let me but get clear of the 'Eagle's' talons, and fear not for me, dear father, I shall see you again, and we will be prosperous and happy yet. But, how to get away?--have you thought of a plan? Can I get a good horse here? Does the Count know I am in trouble, and will he help me? Tell me all, father, and I shall see my own way, I will answer for it.""My gallant boy!" said the steward, despite of himself moved to admiration by the self-reliant bearing of his son; "there is but one chance; for the Count could not but hand you over to Wallenstein if he knew you were in the castle, and then it would be a pleasant jest, and the nearest tree. The General is a jovial comrade and a good-humoured acquaintance; but, as a matter of duty, he would hang his own son and go to dinner afterwards with an appetite none the worse. No, no. 'Trust to an Austrian's mercy and confess yourself!' I have a better plan than that. The Zingynies are in the village; they held their merrymaking here yesterday. I saw their Queen last night after you arrived. I have arranged it all with her. A gipsy's dress, a dyed skin, and the middle of the troop; not an Austrian soldier in Hungary that will detect you then. Banishment is better than death. Oh, my boy! my boy!" and once more the old man gave way and wept."Forward, then, father!" said the young man, whom I now recognised as my travelling acquaintance; "there is no time to lose now. How can we get out of the castle without alarming the household? I leave all to you now; it will be my turn some day." And as he spoke he rose from the steps on which he had been lying when his recumbent form had so alarmed Victor and myself, and accompanied his father down a winding staircase that seemed let into the massive wall of the old building. My curiosity was fearfully excited. I would have given all my playthings to follow them. I crept stealthily on, naked feet and all; but I was not close enough behind, and the door shut quietly with a spring just as my hand was upon it, leaving me alone in the Ghost's Gallery. I was not the least frightened now. I forgot all about ghosts and Breviaries, and stole back to my nursery and my bed, my little head completely filled with a medley of stewards and soldiers and gipsies, and Austrian generals and military executions, and phantom dogs and secret staircases, and all the most unlikely incidents that crowd together in that busy organ--a child's brain.CHAPTER VTHE ZINGYNIESThe morning sun smiles upon a motley troop journeying towards the Danube. Two or three lithe, supple urchins, bounding and dancing along with half-naked bodies, and bright black eyes shining through knotted elf-locks, form the advanced guard. Half-a-dozen donkeys seem to carry the whole property of the tribe. The main body consists of sinewy, active-looking men, and strikingly handsome girls, all walking with the free, graceful air and elastic gait peculiar to those whose lives are passed entirely in active exercise, under no roof but that of heaven. Dark-browed women in the very meridian of beauty bring up the rear, dragging or carrying a race of swarthy progeny, all alike distinguished for the sparkling eyes and raven hair, which, with a cunning nothing can overreach, and a nature nothing can tame, seem to be the peculiar inheritance of the gipsy. Their costume is striking, not to say grotesque. Some of the girls, and all the matrons, bind their brows with various coloured handkerchiefs, which form a very picturesque and not unbecoming head-gear; whilst in a few instances coins even of gold are strung amongst the jetty locks of the Zingynie beauties. The men are not so particular in their attire. One sinewy fellow wears only a goatskin shirt and a string of beads round his neck, but the generality are clad in the coarse cloth of the country, much tattered, and bearing evident symptoms of weather and wear. The little mischievous urchins who are clinging round their mothers' necks, or dragging back from their mothers' hands, and holding on to their mothers' skirts, are almost naked. Small heads and hands and feet, all the marks of what we are accustomed to term high birth, are hereditary among the gipsies; and we doubt if the Queen of the South herself was a more queenly-looking personage than the dame now marching in the midst of the throng, and conversing earnestly with her companion, a resolute-looking man scarce entering upon the prime of life, with a gipsy complexion, but a bearing in which it is not difficult to recognise the soldier. He is talking to his protectress--for such she is--with a military frankness and vivacity, which even to that royal personage, accustomed though she be to exact all the respect due to her rank, appear by no means displeasing. The lady is verging on the autumn of her charms (their summer must have been scorching indeed!) and though a masculine beauty, is a beauty nevertheless. Black-browed is she, and deep-coloured, with eyes of fire, and locks of jet, even now untinged with grey. Straight and regular are her features, and the wide mouth, with its strong, even dazzling teeth, betokens an energy and force of will which would do credit to the other sex. She has the face of a woman that would dare much, labour much, everything butlovemuch. She ought to be a queen, and she is one, none the less despotic for ruling over a tribe of gipsies instead of a civilised community."None dispute my word here," says she, "and my word is pledged to bring you to the Danube. Let me see a soldier of them all lay a hand upon you, and you shall see the gipsy brood show their teeth. A long knife is no bad weapon at close quarters. When you have got to the top of the wheel you will remember me!"The soldier laughed, and lightly replied, "Yours are the sort of eyes one does not easily forget, mother. I wish I were a prince of the blood in your nation. As I am situated now I can only be dazzled by so much beauty, and go my ways."The woman checked him sternly, almost savagely, though a few minutes before she had been listening, half amused, to his gay and not very respectful conversation."Hush!" she said, "trifler. Once more I say, when the wheel has turned, remember me. Give me your hand; I can read it plainer so.""What, mother?" laughed out her companion. "Every gipsy can tell fortunes; mine has been told many a time, but it never came true."She was studying the lines on his palm with earnest attention. She raised her dark eyes angrily to his face."Blind! blind!" she answered, in a low, eager tone. "The best of you cannot see a yard upon your way. Look at that white road, winding and winding many a mile before us upon the plain. Because it is flat and soft and smooth as far as we can see, will there be no hills on our journey, no rocks to cut our feet--no thorns to tear our limbs? Can you see the Danube rolling on far, far before us? Can you see the river you will have to cross some day, or can you tell me where it leads? I have the map of our journey here in my brain; I have the map of your career here on your hand. Once more I say, when the chiefs are in council, and the hosts are melting like snow before the sun, and the earth quakes, and the heavens are filled with thunder, and the shower that falls scorches and crushes and blasts--remember me! I follow the line of wealth: Man of gold! spoil on; here a horse, there a diamond; hundreds to uphold the right, thousands to spare the wrong; both hands full, and broad lands near a city of palaces, and a king's favour, and a nation of slaves beneath thy foot. I follow the line of pleasure: Costly amber; rich embroidery; dark eyes melting for the Croat; glances unveiled for the shaven head, many and loving and beautiful; a garland of roses, all for one--rose by rose plucked and withered and thrown away; one tender bud remaining; cherish it till it blows, and wear it till it dies. I follow the line of blood: it leads towards the rising sun--charging squadrons with lances in rest, and a wild shout in a strange tongue; and the dead wrapped in grey, with charm and amulet that were powerless to save; and hosts of many nations gathered by the sea--pestilence, famine, despair, and victory. Rising on the whirlwind, chief among chiefs, the honoured of leaders, the counsellor of princes--remember me! But ha! the line is crossed. Beware! trust not the sons of the adopted land; when the lily is on thy breast, beware of the dusky shadow on the wall; beware and remember me!"The gipsy stopped, and clung to him exhausted. For a few paces she was unable to support herself; the prophetic mood past, there was a reaction, and all her powers seemed to fail her at once; but her companion walked on in silence. The eagerness of the Pythoness had impressed even his strong, practical nature, and he seemed himself to look into futurity as he muttered, "If man can win it, I will."The gipsies travelled but slowly; and although the sun was already high, they had not yet placed many miles between the fugitive and the castle. This, however, was of no great importance. His disguise was so complete, that few would have recognised in the tattered, swarthy vagrant, the smart, soldier-like traveller who had arrived the previous evening at Edeldorf. From the conversation I had overheard in the Ghost's Gallery, I was alone in the secret, which, strange to say, I forbore to confide even to my friend Victor. But I could not forget the steward and his son; it was my first glimpse into the romance of real life, and I could not help feeling a painful interest in his fortunes, and an eager desire to see him at least safe off with his motley company. I was rejoiced, therefore, at Victor's early proposal, made the very instant we had swallowed our breakfasts, that we should take a ride; and notwithstanding my misgivings about a strange pony, for I was always timid on horseback, I willingly accepted his offer of a mount, and jumped into the saddle almost as readily as my little companion, a true Hungarian, with whom,Like Mad Tom, the chiefest careWas horse to ride and weapon wear.Of course, Victor had a complete establishment of ponies belonging to himself; and equally of course, he had detailed to me at great length their several merits and peculiarities, with an authentic biography of his favourite--a stiff little chestnut, rejoicing in the name of "Gold-kind," which, signifying as it does "the golden-child," or darling, he seemed to think an exceedingly happy allusion to the chestnut skin and endearing qualities of his treasure.Fortunately, my pony was very quiet; and although, when mounted, my playfellow went off at score, we were soon some miles from Edeldorf, without any event occurring to upset my own equilibrium or the sobriety of my steed. Equally fortunately, we took the road by which the gipsies had travelled. Ere long, we overtook the cavalcade as it wound slowly along the plain. Heads were bared to Victor, and blessings called down upon the family of De Rohan; for the old Count was at all times a friend to the friendless, and a refuge to the poor."Good luck to you, young Count! shall I tell your fortune?" said one."Little, honourable cavalier, give me your hand, and cross it with a 'zwantziger,'" said another."Be silent, children, and let me speak to the young De Rohan," said the gipsy queen; and she laid her hand upon his bridle, and fairly brought Gold-kind to a halt.Victor looked half afraid, although he began to laugh."Let me go," said he, tugging vigorously at his reins; "papa desired me not to have my fortune told.""Not by a common Zingynie," urged the queen, archly; "but I am the mother of all these. My pretty boy, I was at your christening, and have held you in my arms many a time. Let me tell your happy fortune."Victor began to relent. "If Vere will have his told first, I will," said he, turning half bashfully, half eagerly to me.I proffered my hand readily to the gipsy, and crossed it with one of the two pieces of silver which constituted the whole of my worldly wealth. The gipsy laughed, and began to prophesy in German. There are some events a child never forgets; and I remember every word she said as well as if it had been spoken yesterday."Over the sea, and again over the sea; thou shalt know grief and hardship and losses, and the dove shall be driven from its nest. And the dove's heart shall become like the eagle's, that flies alone, and fleshes her beak in the slain. Beat on, though the poor wings be bruised by the tempest, and the breast be sore, and the heart sink; beat on against the wind, and seek no shelter till thou find thy resting-place at last. The time will come--only beat on."The woman laughed as she spoke; but there was a kindly tone in her voice and a pitying look in her bright eyes that went straight to my heart. Many a time since, in life, when the storm has indeed been boisterous and the wings so weary, have I thought of those words of encouragement, "The time will come--beat on."It was now Victor's turn, and he crossed his palm with a golden ducat ere he presented it to the sibyl. This was of itself sufficient to insure him a magnificent future; and as the queen perused the lines on his soft little hand, with its pink fingers, she indulged in anticipations of magnificence proportioned to the handsome donation of the child."Thou shalt be a 'De Rohan,' my darling, and I can promise thee no brighter lot,--broad acres, and blessings from the poor, and horses, and wealth, and honours. And the sword shall spare thee, and the battle turn aside to let thee pass. And thou shalt wed a fair bride with dark eyes and a queenly brow; but beware of St. Hubert's Day. Birth and burial, birth and burial--beware of St. Hubert's Day.""But I want to be a soldier," exclaimed Victor, who seemed much disappointed at the future which was prognosticated for him; "the De Rohans were always soldiers. Mother, can't you make out I shall be a soldier?" still holding the little hand open."Farewell, my children," was the only answer vouchsafed by the prophetess. "I can only read, I cannot write: farewell." And setting the troop in order, she motioned to them to continue their march without further delay.I took advantage of the movement to press near my acquaintance of the day before, whom I had not failed to recognise in his gipsy garb. Poor fellow, my childish heart bled for him, and, in a happy moment, I bethought me of my remaining bit of silver. I stooped from my pony and kissed his forehead, while I squeezed the coin into his hand without a word. The tears came into the deserter's eyes. "God bless you, little man! I shall never forget you," was all he said; but I observed that he bit the coin with his large, strong teeth till it was nearly double, and then placed it carefully in his bosom. We turned our ponies, and were soon out of sight; but I never breathed a syllable to Victor about the fugitive, or the steward, or the Ghost's Gallery, for two whole days. Human nature could keep the secret no longer.CHAPTER VISCHOOLIn one of the pleasantest valleys of sweet Somersetshire stands a large red-brick house that bears unmistakably impressed on its exterior the title "School." You would not take it for a "hall," or an hospital, or an almshouse, or anything in the world but an institution for the rising generation, in which the ways of the wide world are so successfully imitated that, in the qualities of foresight, cunning, duplicity, and general selfishness, the boy may indeed be said to be "father to the man." The house stands on a slope towards the south, with a trim lawn and carefully-kept gravel drive, leading to a front door, of which the steps are always clean and the handles always bright. How a ring at that door-bell used to bring all our hearts into our mouths. Forty boys were we, sitting grudgingly over our lessons on the bright summer forenoons, and not one of us but thought that ring might possibly announce a "something" for him from "home." Home! what was there in the word, that it should call up such visions of happiness, that it should create such a longing, sickening desire to have the wings of a dove and flee away, that it should make the present such a blank and comfortless reality? Why do we persist in sending our children so early to school? A little boy, with all his affections developing themselves, loving and playful and happy, not ashamed to be fond of his sisters, and thinking mamma all that is beautiful and graceful and good, is to be torn from that home which is to him an earthly Paradise, and transferred to a place of which we had better not ask the urchin his own private opinion. We appeal to every mother--and it is a mother who is best capable of judging for a child--whether her darling returns to her improved in her eyes after his first half-year at school. She looks in vain for the pliant, affectionate disposition that a word from her used to be capable, of moulding at will, and finds instead a stubborn self-sufficient spirit that has been called forth by harsh treatment and intercourse with the mimic world of boys; more selfish and more conventional, because less characteristic than that of men. He is impatient of her tenderness now, nay, half ashamed to return it. Already he aspires to be a man, in his own eyes, and thinks it manly to make light of those affections and endearments by which he once set such store. The mother is no longer all in all in his heart, her empire is divided and weakened, soon it will be swept away, and she sighs for the white-frock days when her child was fondly and entirely her own. Now, I cannot help thinking the longer these days last the better. Anxious parent, what do you wish your boy to become? A successful man in after life?--then rear him tenderly and carefully at first. You would not bit a colt at two years old; be not less patient with your own flesh and blood. Nature is the best guide, you may depend. Leave him to the women till his strength is established and his courage high, and when the metal has assumed shape and consistency, to the forge with it as soon as you will. Hardship, buffetings, adversity, all these are good for theyouth, but, for Heaven's sake, spare thechild.Forty boys are droning away at their tasks on a bright sunshiny morning in June, and I am sitting at an old oak desk, begrimed and splashed with the inkshed of many generations, and hacked by the knives of idler after idler for the last fifty years. I have yet to learn by heart some two score lines from the Æneid. How I hate Virgil whilst I bend over those dog's-eared leaves and that uncomfortable desk. How I envy the white butterfly of which I have just got a glimpse as he soars away into the blue sky--for no terrestrial objects are visible from our schoolroom window to distract our attention and interfere with our labours. I have already accompanied him in fancy over the lawn, and the garden, and the high white-thorn fence into the meadow beyond,--how well I know the deep glades of that copse for which he is making; how I wish I was on my back in its shadow now. Never mind, to-day is a half-holiday, and this afternoon I will spend somehow in a dear delicious ramble through the fairy-land of "out of bounds." The rap of our master's cane against his desk--a gentlemanlike method of awakening attention and asserting authority--startles me from my day-dream. "March," for we drop the Mr. prefixed, in speaking of our pedagogue, "March is a bit of a Tartar, and I tremble for the result.""Egerton to come up."Egerton goes up accordingly, with many misgivings, and embarks, like a desperate man, on the loathedinfandum Regina jubes.The result may be gathered from March's observations as he returns me the book."Not a line correct, sir; stand down, sir; the finest passage of the poet shamefully mangled and defaced; it is a perfect disgrace to Everdon. Remain in till five, sir; and repeat the whole lesson to Mr. Manners.""Please, sir, I tried to learn it, sir; indeed I did, sir.""Don't tell me, sir;triedto learn it, indeed. If it had been French or German, or--or any of these useless branches of learning, you would have had it by heart fast enough; but Latin, sir, Latin is the foundation of a gentleman's education; Latin you were sent here to acquire, and Latin, sir" (with an astounding rap on the desk), "youshalllearn, or I'll know the reason why."I may remark that March, though an excellent scholar, professed utter contempt for all but the dead languages.I determined to make one more effort to save my half-holiday."Please, sir, if I might look over it once more, I could say it when the second class goes down; please, sir, won't you give me another chance?"March was not, in schoolboy parlance, "half a bad fellow," and he did give me another chance, and I came up to him once more at the conclusion of school, having repeated the whole forty lines to myself without missing a word; but, alas! when I stood again on the step which led up to the dreaded desk, and gave away the book into those uncompromising hands, and heard that stern voice with its "Now, sir, begin," my intellects forsook me altogether, and while the floor seemed to rock under me, I made such blunders and confusion of the chief's oration to the love-sick queen, as drove March to the extremity of that very short tether which he was pleased to call his "patience," and drew upon myself the dreaded condemnation I had fought so hard to escape."Remain in, sir, till perfect, and repeat to Mr. Manners, without a mistake--Mr. Manners, you will be kind enough to see,without a mistake! Boys!" (with another rap of the cane) "school's up." March locks his desk with a bang, and retires. Mr. Manners puts on his hat. Forty boys burst instantaneously into tumultuous uproar, forty pairs of feet scuffle along the dusty boards, forty voices break into song and jest and glee, forty spirits are emancipated from the prison-house into freedom and air and sunshine--forty, all save one.So again I turn to theinfandum Eegina Jubes, and sit me down and cry.I had gone late to school, but I was a backward child in everything save my proficiency in modern languages. I had never known a mother, and the little education I had acquired was picked up in a desultory manner here and there during my travels with my father, and afterwards in a gloomy old library at Alton Grange, his own place in the same county as Mr. March's school. My father had remained abroad till his affairs made it imperative that he should return to England, and for some years we lived in seclusion at Alton, with an establishment that even my boyish penetration could discover was reduced to the narrowest possible limits. I think this was the idlest period of my life. I did no lessons, unless my father's endeavour to teach me painting, an art that I showed year after year less inclination to master, could be called so. I had but few ideas, yet they were very dear ones. I adored my father; on him I lavished all the love that would have been a mother's right; and having no other relations--none in the world that I cared for, or that cared for me, even nurse Nettich having remained in Hungary--my father was all-in-all. I used to wait at his door of a morning to hear him wake, and go away quite satisfied without letting him know. I used to watch him for miles when he rode out, and walk any distance to meet him on his way home. To please him I would even mount a quiet pony that he had bought on purpose for me, and dissemble my terrors because I saw they annoyed my kind father. I was a very shy, timid, and awkward boy, shrinking from strangers with a fear that was positively painful, and liking nothing so well as a huge arm-chair in the gloomy oak wainscoted library, where I would sit by the hour reading old poetry, old plays, old novels, and wandering about till I lost myself in a world of my own creating, full of beauty and romance, and all that ideal life which we must perforce call nonsense, but which, were it reality, would make this earth a heaven. Such was a bad course of training for a boy whose disposition was naturally too dreamy and imaginative, too deficient in energy and practical good sense. Had it gone on I must have become a madman; what is it but madness to live in a world of our own? I shall never forget the break-up of my dreams, the beginning, to me, of hard practical life.I was coiled up in my favourite attitude, buried in the depths of a huge arm-chair in the library, and devouring with all my senses and all my soul the pages of theMorte d'Arthur, that most voluminous and least instructive of romances, but one for which, to my shame be it said, I confess to this day a sneaking kindness. I was gazing on Queen Guenever, as I pictured her to myself, in scarlet and ermine and pearls, with raven hair plaited over her queenly brow, and soft violet eyes, looking kindly down on mailed Sir Launcelot at her feet. I was holding Arthur's helmet in the forest, as the frank, handsome, stalwart monarch bent over a sparkling rill and cooled his sunburnt cheek, and laved his chestnut beard, whilst the sunbeams flickered through the green leaves and played upon his gleaming corslet and his armour of proof. I was feasting at Camelot with the Knights of the Round Table, jesting with Sir Dinadam, discussing grave subjects of high import with Sir Gawain, or breaking a lance in knightly courtesy with Sir Tristram and Sir Bore; in short, I was a child at a spectacle, but the spectacle came and went, and grew more and more gorgeous at will. In the midst of my dreams in walked my father, and sat down opposite the old arm-chair."Vere," said he, "you must go to school."The announcement took away my breath: I had never, in my wildest moments, contemplated such a calamity."To school, papa; and when?" I mustered up courage to ask, clinging like a convict to the hope of a reprieve."The first of the month, my boy," answered my father, rather bullying himself into firmness, for I fancy he hated the separation as much as I did; "Mr. March writes me that his scholars will reunite on the first of next month, and he has a vacancy for you. We must make a man of you, Vere; and young De Rohan, your Hungarian friend, is going there too. You will have lots of playfellows, and get on very well, I have no doubt; and Everdon is not so far from here, and--and--you will be very comfortable, I trust; but I am loth to part with you, my dear, and that's the truth."I felt as if I could have endured martyrdom when my father made this acknowledgment. I could do anything if I was only coaxed and pitied a little; and when I saw he was so unhappy at the idea of our separation, I resolved that no word or look of mine should add to his discomfort, although I felt my heart breaking at the thoughts of bidding him good-bye and leaving the Grange, with its quiet regularity and peaceful associations, for the noise and bustle and discipline of a large school. Queen Guenever and Sir Launcelot faded hopelessly from my mental vision, and in their places rose up stern forms of harsh taskmasters and satirical playfellows, early hours, regular discipline, Latin and Greek, and, worst of all, a continual bustle and a life in a crowd.There were two peculiarities in my boyish character which, more than any others, unfitted me for battling with the world. I had a morbid dread of ridicule, which made me painfully shy of strangers. I have on many an occasion stood with my hand on the lock of a door, dreading to enter the room in which I heard strange voices, and then, plunging in with a desperate effort, have retired again as abruptly, covered with confusion, and so nervous as to create in the minds of the astonished guests a very natural doubt as to my mental sanity. The other peculiarity was an intense love of solitude. I was quite happy with my father, but if I could not enjoy his society, I preferred my own to that of any other mortal. I would take long walks by myself--I would sit for hours and read by myself--I had a bedroom of my own, into which I hated even a servant to set foot--and perhaps the one thing I dreaded more than all besides in my future life was, that I should never, never, bealone.How I prized the last few days I spent at home; how I gazed on all the well-known objects as if I should never see them again; how the very chairs and tables seemed to bid me good-bye like old familiar friends. I had none of the lively anticipations which most boys cherish of the manliness and independence arising from a school-life; no long vista of cricket and football, and fame in their own little world, with increasing strength and stature, to end in a tailed coat, and even whiskers! No, I hated the idea of the whole thing. I expected to be miserable at Everdon, and, I freely confess, was not disappointed.CHAPTER VIIPLAYDinner was over, and play-time begun for all but me, and again I turned to theinfandum Regina jubes, and sat me down to cry.A kind hand, grimed with ink, was laid on my shoulder, a pair of soft blue eyes looked into my face, and Victor de Rohan, my former playfellow, my present fast friend and declared "chum," sat down on the form beside me, and endeavoured to console me in distress."I'll help you, Egerton," said the warm-hearted lad; "say it to me; March is a beast, but Manners is a good fellow; Manners will hear you now, and we shall have our half-holiday after all.""I can't, I can't," was my desponding reply. "Manners won't hear me, I know, till I am perfect, and I never can learn this stupid sing-song story. How I hate Queen Dido--how I hate Virgil. You should read about Guenever, Victor, and King Arthur! I'll tell you about them this afternoon;" and the tears came again into my eyes as I remembered there was no afternoon for me."Try once more," said Victor; "I'll get Manners to hear you; leave it to me; I know how to do it. I'll ask Ropsley." And Victor was off into the playground ere I was aware, in search of this valuable auxiliary.Now, Ropsley was the mainspring round which turned the whole of our little world at Everdon. If an excuse for a holiday could be found, Ropsley was entreated to ask the desired favour of March. If a quarrel had to be adjusted, either in the usual course of ordeal by battle, or the less decisive method of arbitration, Ropsley was always invited to see fair play. He was the king of our little community. It was whispered that he could spar better than Manners, and construe better than March: he was certainly a more perfect linguist--as indeed I could vouch for from my own knowledge--than Schwartz, who came twice a week to teach us a rich German-French. We saw his boots were made by Hoby, and we felt his coats could only be the work of Stulz, for in those days Poole was not, and we were perfectly willing to believe that he wore a scarlet hunting-coat in the Christmas holidays, and had visiting cards of his own. In person he was tall and slim, with a pale complexion, and waving, soft brown hair: without being handsome, he was distinguished-looking; and even as a boy, I have seen strangers turn round and ask who he was; but the peculiar feature of his countenance was his light grey eye, veiled with long black eyelashes. It never seemed to kindle or to waver or to wink; it was always the same, hard, penetrating, and unmoved; it never smiled, though the rest of his features would laugh heartily enough, and it certainly never wept. Even in boyhood it was the eye of a cool, calculating, wary man. He knew the secrets of every boy in the school, but no one ever dreamt of cross-questioning Ropsley. We believed he only stayed at Everdon as a favour to March, who was immensely proud of his pupil's gentlemanlike manners and appearance, as well as of his scholarly proficiency, although no one ever saw him study, and we always expected Ropsley was "going to leave this half." We should not have been the least surprised to hear he had been sent for by the Sovereign, and created a peer of the realm on the spot; with all our various opinions, we were unanimous in one creed--that nothing was impossible for Ropsley, and he need only try, to succeed. For myself, I was dreadfully afraid of this luminary, and looked up to him with feelings of veneration which amounted to positive awe.Not so Victor; the young Hungarian feared, I believe, nothing on earth, andrespectedbut little. He was the only boy in the school who, despite the difference of age, would talk with Ropsley upon equal terms; and if anything could have added to the admiration with which we regarded the latter, it would have been the accurate knowledge he displayed of De Rohan's family, their history, their place in Hungary, all their belongings, as if he himself had been familiar with Edeldorf from boyhood. But so it was with everything; Ropsley knew all about people in general better than they did themselves.Victor rushed back triumphantly into the schoolroom, where I still sat desponding at my desk, and Ropsley followed him."What's the matter, Vere?" he asked, in a patronising tone, and calling me by my Christian name, which I esteemed a great compliment. "What's the matter?" he repeated; "forty lines of Virgil to say; come, that's not much.""But Ican'tlearn it," I urged. "You must think me very stupid; and if it was French, or German, or English, I should not mind twice the quantity, but I cannot learn Latin, and it's no use trying."The older boy sneered; it seemed so easy to him with his powerful mind to get forty lines of hexameters by heart. I believe he could have repeated the wholeÆneidwithout book from beginning to end."Do you want to go out to-day, Vere?" said he.I clasped my hands in supplication, as I replied, "Oh! I would give anything,anything, to get away from this horrid schoolroom, and 'shirk out' with Victor and Bold."The latter, be it observed, was a dog in whose society I took great delight, and whom I kept in the village, at an outlay of one shilling per week, much to the detriment of my personal fortune."Very well," said the great man; "come with me to Manners, and bring your book with you."So I followed my deliverer into the playground, with theinfandum Reginastill weighing heavily on my soul.Manners, the usher, was playing cricket with some dozen of the bigger boys, and was in the act of "going for a sixer." His coat and waistcoat were off, and his shirt-sleeves tucked up, disclosing his manly arms bared to the elbow; and Manners was in his glory, for, notwithstanding the beard upon his chin, our usher was as very a boy at heart as the youngest urchin in the lower class. A dandy, too, was Manners, and a wight of an imaginative turn of mind, which chiefly developed itself in the harmless form of bright visions for the future, teeming with romantic adventures, of which he was himself to be the hero. His past he seldom dwelt upon. His aspirations were military--his ideas extravagant. He was great on the Peninsula and Lord Anglesey at Waterloo; and had patent boxes in his high-heeled boots that only required the addition of heavy clanking spurs to complete the illusion that Mr. Manners ought to be a cavalry officer. Of his riding he spoke largely; but his proficiency in this exercise we had no means of ascertaining. There were two things, however, on which Manners prided himself, and which were a source of intense amusement to the urchins by whom he was surrounded:--these were, his personal strength, and his whiskers; the former quality was encouraged to develop itself by earnest application to all manly sports and exercises; the latter ornaments were cultivated and enriched with every description of "nutrifier," "regenerator," and "unguent" known to the hairdresser or the advertiser. Alas! without effect proportioned to the perseverance displayed; two small patches of fluff under the jaw-bones, that showed to greatest advantage by candlelight, being the only evidence of so much painstaking and cultivation thrown away. Of his muscular prowess, however, it behoved us to speak with reverence. Was it not on record in the annals of the school that when the "King of Naples," our dissipated pieman, endeavoured to justify by force an act of dishonesty by which he had done Timmins minor out of half-a-crown, Manners stripped at once to his shirt-sleeves, and "went in" at the Monarch with all the vigour and activity of some three-and-twenty summers against three-score? The Monarch, a truculent old ruffian, with a red neckcloth, half-boots, and one eye, fought gallantly for a few rounds, and was rather getting the best of it, when, somewhat unaccountably, he gave in, leaving the usher master of the field. Ropsley, who gave his friend a knee,secundum artem, and urged him, with frequent injunctions, to "fight high," attributed this easy victory to the forbearance of their antagonist, who had an eye to future trade and mercantile profits; but Manners, whose account of the battle I have heard more than once, always scouted this view of the transaction."He went down, sir, as if he was shot," he would say, doubling his arm, and showing the muscles standing out in bold relief. "Few men have the biceps so well developed as mine, and he went downas if he was shot. If I had hit him as hard as I could, sir, Imusthave killed him!"Our usher was a good-natured fellow, notwithstanding."I'll hear you in ten minutes, Egerton," said he, "when I have had my innings;" and forthwith he stretched himself into attitude, and prepared to strike."Better give me your bat," remarked Ropsley, who was too lazy to play cricket in a regular manner. Of course, Manners consented; nobody ever refused Ropsley anything; and in ten minutes' time I had repeated theinfandum Regina, and Ropsley had added some dozen masterly hits to the usher's score. Ropsley always liked another man's "innings" better than his own.Now the regulations at Everdon, as they were excessively strict, and based upon the principle that Apollo should always keep the bow at the utmost degree of tension, so were they eluded upon every available opportunity, and set at nought and laughed at by the youngest urchins in the school. We had an ample playground for our minor sports, and a meadow beyond, in which we were permitted to follow the exhilarating pastime of cricket, the share of the younger boys in that exciting amusement being limited to a pursuit of the ball round the field, and a prompt return of the same to their seniors, doubtless a necessary ingredient in this noble game, but one which is not calculated to excite enthusiastic pleasure in the youthful mind. From the playground and its adjacent meadow it was a capital offence to absent oneself. All the rest of Somersetshire was "out of bounds"; and to be caught "out of bounds" was a crime for which corporal punishment was the invariable reward. At the same time, the offence was, so to speak, "winked at." No inquiries were made as to how we spent half-holidays between one o'clock and seven; and many a glorious ramble we used to have during those precious six hours in all the ecstasy of "freedom,"--a word understood by none better than the schoolboy. A certain deference was, however, exacted to the regulations of the establishment; by a sort of tacit compact, it seemed to be understood that our code was so far Spartan as to make, not the crime, but the being "found out," a punishable offence, and boys were always supposed to take their chance. If seen in the act of escaping, or afterwards met by any of the masters in the surrounding country, we were liable to be flogged; and to do March justice, we alwayswereflogged, and pretty soundly, too. Under these circumstances, some little care and circumspection had to be observed in starting for our rambles. Certain steps had been made in the playground wall, where it was hidden from the house by the stem of a fine old elm, and by dropping quietly down into an orchard beyond--an orchard, be it observed, of which the fruit was always plucked before it reached maturity--and then stealing along the back of a thick, high hedge, we could get fairly away out of sight of the school windows, and so make our escape.Now, on the afternoon in question we had planned an expedition in which Victor, and I, and my dog Bold had determined to be principal performers. Of the latter personage in the trio I must remark, that no party of pleasure on which we embarked was ever supposed to be perfect without his society. His original possessor was the "King of Naples," whom I have already mentioned, and who, I conclude, stole him, as he appeared one day tied to that personage by an old cotton handkerchief, and looking as wobegone and unhappy as a retriever puppy of some three months old, torn from his mamma and his brothers and sisters, and the comfortable kennel in which he was brought up, and transferred to the tender mercies of a drunken, poaching, dog-stealing ruffian, was likely to feel in so false a position. The "King" brought him into our playground on one of his tart-selling visits, as a specimen of the rarest breed of retrievers known in the West of England. The puppy seemed so thoroughly miserable, and looked up at me so piteously, that I forthwith asked his price, and after a deal of haggling, and a consultation between De Rohan and myself, I determined to become his purchaser, at the munificent sum of one sovereign, of which ten shillings (my all) were to be paid on the spot, and the other ten to remain, so to speak, on mortgage upon the animal, with the further understanding that he should be kept at the residence of the "King of Naples," who, in consideration of the regular payment of one shilling per week, bound himself to feed the same and complete his education in all the canine branches of plunging, diving, fetching and carrying, on a system of his own, which he briefly described as "fust-rate."With a deal of prompting from Manners, I got through my forty lines; and he shut the book with a good-natured smile as Ropsley threw down the bat he had been wielding so skilfully, and put on his coat."Come and lunch with me at 'The Club,'" said he to Manners, whom he led completely by the nose; "I'll give you Dutch cheese, and sherry and soda-water, and a cigar. Hie! Vere, you ungrateful little ruffian, where are you off to? I want you."I was making my escape as rapidly as possible at the mention of "The Club," a word which we younger boys held in utter fear and detestation, as being associated in our minds with much perilous enterprise and gratuitous suffering. The Club consisted of an old bent tree in a retired corner of the playground, on the trunk of which Ropsley had caused a comfortable seat to be fashioned for his own delectation; and here, in company with Manners and two or three senior boys, it was his custom to sit smoking and drinking curious compounds, of which the ingredients, being contraband, had to be fetched by us, at the risk of corporal punishment, from the village of Everdon, an honest half-mile journey at the least.Ropsley tendered a large cigar to Manners, lit one himself, settled his long limbs comfortably on the seat, and gave me his orders."One Dutch cheese, three pottles of strawberries--now attend, confound you!--two bottles of old sherry from 'The Greyhound,'--mind, the OLD sherry; half-a-dozen of soda-water, and a couple of pork-pies. Put the whole into a basket; they'll give you one at the bar, if you say it's for me, and tell them to put it down to my account. Put a clean napkin over the basket, and if you dirty the napkin or break the bottles, I'll breakyourhead! Now be off! Manners, I'll take your two to one he does it without a mistake, and is back here under the five-and-twenty minutes."I did not dare disobey, but I was horribly disgusted at having to employ any portion of my half-holiday in so uncongenial a manner. I rushed back into the schoolroom for my cap, and held a hurried consultation with Victor as to our future proceedings."He only got you off because he wanted you to 'shirk out' for him," exclaimed my indignant chum; "it's a shame,thatit is. Don't go for him, Vere; let's get out quietly, and be off to Beverley. It's the last chance, so old 'Nap' says" (this was an abbreviation for the "King of Naples," who was in truth a great authority both with Victor and myself); "and it'ssucha beautiful afternoon.""But what a licking I shall get from Ropsley," I interposed, with considerable misgivings; "he's sure to say I'm an ungrateful little beast. I don't like to be called ungrateful, Victor, and I don't like to be called a little beast.""Oh, never mind the names, and a licking is soon over," replied Victor, who learned little from hisHoracesave thecarpe diemphilosophy, and who looked upon the licking with considerably more resignation than did the probable recipient. "We shall just have time to do it, if we start now. Come on, old fellow; be plucky for once, and come on."I was not proof against the temptation. The project was a long-planned one, and I could not bear the thoughts of giving it up now. Many a time in our rambles had we surmounted the hill that looked down upon Beverley Manor, and viewed it from afar as a sort of unknown fairyland. What a golden time one's boyhood was! A day at Beverley was our dream of all that was most exciting in adventure, most voluptuous in delight; and now "Nap" had promised to accompany us to this earthly Paradise, and show us what he was pleased to term its "hins-an'-houts." Not all the cheeses of Holland should prevent my having one day's liberty and enjoyment. I weighed well the price: the certain licking, and the sarcastic abuse which I feared even more; and I think I held my half-holiday all the dearer for having to purchase it at such a cost.We were across the playground like lapwings. Ropsley, who was deep in his cigar and a copy ofBell's Life, which forbidden paper he caused Manners to take in for him surreptitiously, never dreamed that his behests could be treated with contempt, and hardly turned his head to look at us. We surmounted the wall with an agility born of repeated practice; we stole along the adjacent orchard, under covert of the well-known friendly hedge, and only breathed freely when we found ourselves completely out of sight of the house, and swinging along the Everdon lane at a schoolboy's jog, which, like the Highlander's, is equivalent to any other person's gallop. No pair of carriage horses can step together like two schoolboy "chums" who are in the constant habit of being late in company. Little boys as we were, Victor and I could do our five miles in the hour without much difficulty, keeping step like clockwork, and talking the whole time.In five minutes we were at the wicket of a small tumble-down building, with dilapidated windows and a ruinous thatched roof, which was in fact the dwelling of no less a personage than the "King of Naples," but was seldom alluded to by that worthy in more definite terms than "the old place," or "my shop"; and this only when in a particularly confidential mood--its existence being usually indicated by a jerk of the head towards his blind side, which was supposed to infer proper caution, and a decorous respect for the sanctity of private life. It was indeed one of those edifices of which the word "tenement" seems alone to convey an adequate description. The garden produce consisted of a ragged shirt and a darned pair of worsted stockings, whilst a venerable buck rabbit looked solemnly out from a hutch on one side of the doorway, and a pair of red-eyed ferrets shed their fragrance from a rough deal box on the other. "Nap" himself was not to be seen on a visitor's first entrance into his habitation, but generally appeared after a mysterious delay, from certain back settlements, of which one never discovered the exact "whereabout." A grimy old woman, with her skirts pinned up, was invariably washing the staircase when we called, and it was only in obedience to her summons that "Nap" himself could be brought forward. This dame possessed a superstitious interest in the eyes of us boys, on account of the mysterious relationship in which she stood to "Nap." He always addressed her as "mother"--but no boy at Everdon had yet ascertained whether this was a generic term significant of age and sex, an appellation of endearment to a spouse, or a tribute of filial reverence from a son."Come, 'Nap,' look alive," halloed Victor, as we rushed up the narrow path that led from the wicket to the door, in breathless haste not to lose the precious moments of our half-holiday. "Now, mother, where is he?" added the lively young truant. "Time's up; 'Nap'--'Nap'!"--and the walls echoed to Victor's rich, laughing voice, and half-foreign accent. As usual, after an interval of a few minutes, "Nap" himself appeared at the back door of the cottage, with a pair of greased half-boots in one hand, and a ferret, that nestled confidingly against his cheek, in the other."Sarvice, young gen'elmen," said "Nap," wiping his mouth with the back of his hand--"Sarvice, my lord; sarvice, Muster Egerton," repeated he, on recognising his two stanchest patrons. "Here, Bold! Bold!--you do know your master, sure*lie*," as Bold came rollicking forth from the back-yard in which he lived, and testified his delight by many ungainly gambols and puppy-like freedoms, which were responded to as warmly by his delighted owner. My scale of affections at this period of life was easily defined. I loved three objects in the world--viz., my father, Victor, and Bold. I verily believe I cared for nothing on earth but those three; and certainly my dog came in for his share of regard. Bold, although in all the awkwardness of puppyhood, was already beginning to show symptoms of that sagacity which afterwards developed itself into something very few degrees inferior to reason, if indeed it partook not of that faculty which we men are anxious to assume as solely our own. He would already obey the slightest sign--would come to heel at a whisper from his owner or instructor--would drag up huge stones out of ten feet of water, with ludicrous energy and perseverance; and stand waiting for further orders with his head on one side, and an expression of comic intelligence on his handsome countenance that was delightfully ridiculous. He promised to be of great size and strength; and even at this period, when he put his forepaws on my shoulders and licked my face, he was considerably the larger animal of the two. Such familiarities, however, were much discouraged by "Nap.""If so be as you would keep a 'dawg,' real sporting and dawg-like, master," that philosopher would observe, "let un know his distance; I strikes 'em whenever I can reach 'em. Fondlin' of 'em only spiles 'em--same as women."
CHAPTER IV
FATHER AND SON
The Count's old steward has seen all go to rest in the castle; the lords have left the banqueting-room, and the servants, who have been making merry in the hall, are long ere this sound asleep. It is the steward's custom to see all safe before he lights his lamp and retires to rest; but to-night he shades it carefully with a wrinkled hand that trembles strangely, and his white face peers into the darkness, as though he were about some deed of shame. He steals into the Ghost's Gallery, and creeps silently to the farther end. There is a dark object muffled in a cloak in the gloomiest corner, and the light from the steward's lamp reveals a fine young man, sleeping with that thorough abandonment which is only observable in those who are completely outwearied and overdone. It is some minutes ere the old man can wake him.
"My boy!" says he; "my boy, it is time for us to part. Hard, hard is it to be robbed of my son--robbed----" and the old man checks himself as though the word recalled some painful associations.
"Ay, father," was the reply, "you know our old Croatian proverb, 'He who steals is but a borrower.' Nevertheless, I do not wish the Austrians to 'borrow' me, in case I should never be returned; and it is unmannerly for the lieutenant to occupy the same quarters as the general. I must be off before dawn; but surely it cannot be midnight yet."
"In less than an hour the day will break, my son. I have concealed you here because not a servant of the household dare set foot in the Ghost's Gallery till daylight, and you are safe; but twenty-four more hours must see you on the Danube, and you must come here no more. Oh, my boy! my boy!--lost to save me!--dishonoured that I might not be disgraced!--my boy! my boy!"--and the old man burst into a passion of weeping that seemed to convulse his very frame with agony.
The son had more energy and self-command; his voice did not even shake as he soothed and quieted the old man with a protecting fondness like that of a parent for a child. "My father," said he, "there is no dishonour where there is no guilt. My first duty is to you, and were it to do again, I would do it. What? it was but a momentary qualm and a snatch at the box; andnowyou are safe. Father, I shall come back some day, and offer you a home. Fear not for me. I have itherein my breast, the stuff of which men make fortunes. I can rely upon myself. I can obey orders; and, father, when others are bewildered and confused, I cancommand. I feel it; I know it. Let me but get clear of the 'Eagle's' talons, and fear not for me, dear father, I shall see you again, and we will be prosperous and happy yet. But, how to get away?--have you thought of a plan? Can I get a good horse here? Does the Count know I am in trouble, and will he help me? Tell me all, father, and I shall see my own way, I will answer for it."
"My gallant boy!" said the steward, despite of himself moved to admiration by the self-reliant bearing of his son; "there is but one chance; for the Count could not but hand you over to Wallenstein if he knew you were in the castle, and then it would be a pleasant jest, and the nearest tree. The General is a jovial comrade and a good-humoured acquaintance; but, as a matter of duty, he would hang his own son and go to dinner afterwards with an appetite none the worse. No, no. 'Trust to an Austrian's mercy and confess yourself!' I have a better plan than that. The Zingynies are in the village; they held their merrymaking here yesterday. I saw their Queen last night after you arrived. I have arranged it all with her. A gipsy's dress, a dyed skin, and the middle of the troop; not an Austrian soldier in Hungary that will detect you then. Banishment is better than death. Oh, my boy! my boy!" and once more the old man gave way and wept.
"Forward, then, father!" said the young man, whom I now recognised as my travelling acquaintance; "there is no time to lose now. How can we get out of the castle without alarming the household? I leave all to you now; it will be my turn some day." And as he spoke he rose from the steps on which he had been lying when his recumbent form had so alarmed Victor and myself, and accompanied his father down a winding staircase that seemed let into the massive wall of the old building. My curiosity was fearfully excited. I would have given all my playthings to follow them. I crept stealthily on, naked feet and all; but I was not close enough behind, and the door shut quietly with a spring just as my hand was upon it, leaving me alone in the Ghost's Gallery. I was not the least frightened now. I forgot all about ghosts and Breviaries, and stole back to my nursery and my bed, my little head completely filled with a medley of stewards and soldiers and gipsies, and Austrian generals and military executions, and phantom dogs and secret staircases, and all the most unlikely incidents that crowd together in that busy organ--a child's brain.
CHAPTER V
THE ZINGYNIES
The morning sun smiles upon a motley troop journeying towards the Danube. Two or three lithe, supple urchins, bounding and dancing along with half-naked bodies, and bright black eyes shining through knotted elf-locks, form the advanced guard. Half-a-dozen donkeys seem to carry the whole property of the tribe. The main body consists of sinewy, active-looking men, and strikingly handsome girls, all walking with the free, graceful air and elastic gait peculiar to those whose lives are passed entirely in active exercise, under no roof but that of heaven. Dark-browed women in the very meridian of beauty bring up the rear, dragging or carrying a race of swarthy progeny, all alike distinguished for the sparkling eyes and raven hair, which, with a cunning nothing can overreach, and a nature nothing can tame, seem to be the peculiar inheritance of the gipsy. Their costume is striking, not to say grotesque. Some of the girls, and all the matrons, bind their brows with various coloured handkerchiefs, which form a very picturesque and not unbecoming head-gear; whilst in a few instances coins even of gold are strung amongst the jetty locks of the Zingynie beauties. The men are not so particular in their attire. One sinewy fellow wears only a goatskin shirt and a string of beads round his neck, but the generality are clad in the coarse cloth of the country, much tattered, and bearing evident symptoms of weather and wear. The little mischievous urchins who are clinging round their mothers' necks, or dragging back from their mothers' hands, and holding on to their mothers' skirts, are almost naked. Small heads and hands and feet, all the marks of what we are accustomed to term high birth, are hereditary among the gipsies; and we doubt if the Queen of the South herself was a more queenly-looking personage than the dame now marching in the midst of the throng, and conversing earnestly with her companion, a resolute-looking man scarce entering upon the prime of life, with a gipsy complexion, but a bearing in which it is not difficult to recognise the soldier. He is talking to his protectress--for such she is--with a military frankness and vivacity, which even to that royal personage, accustomed though she be to exact all the respect due to her rank, appear by no means displeasing. The lady is verging on the autumn of her charms (their summer must have been scorching indeed!) and though a masculine beauty, is a beauty nevertheless. Black-browed is she, and deep-coloured, with eyes of fire, and locks of jet, even now untinged with grey. Straight and regular are her features, and the wide mouth, with its strong, even dazzling teeth, betokens an energy and force of will which would do credit to the other sex. She has the face of a woman that would dare much, labour much, everything butlovemuch. She ought to be a queen, and she is one, none the less despotic for ruling over a tribe of gipsies instead of a civilised community.
"None dispute my word here," says she, "and my word is pledged to bring you to the Danube. Let me see a soldier of them all lay a hand upon you, and you shall see the gipsy brood show their teeth. A long knife is no bad weapon at close quarters. When you have got to the top of the wheel you will remember me!"
The soldier laughed, and lightly replied, "Yours are the sort of eyes one does not easily forget, mother. I wish I were a prince of the blood in your nation. As I am situated now I can only be dazzled by so much beauty, and go my ways."
The woman checked him sternly, almost savagely, though a few minutes before she had been listening, half amused, to his gay and not very respectful conversation.
"Hush!" she said, "trifler. Once more I say, when the wheel has turned, remember me. Give me your hand; I can read it plainer so."
"What, mother?" laughed out her companion. "Every gipsy can tell fortunes; mine has been told many a time, but it never came true."
She was studying the lines on his palm with earnest attention. She raised her dark eyes angrily to his face.
"Blind! blind!" she answered, in a low, eager tone. "The best of you cannot see a yard upon your way. Look at that white road, winding and winding many a mile before us upon the plain. Because it is flat and soft and smooth as far as we can see, will there be no hills on our journey, no rocks to cut our feet--no thorns to tear our limbs? Can you see the Danube rolling on far, far before us? Can you see the river you will have to cross some day, or can you tell me where it leads? I have the map of our journey here in my brain; I have the map of your career here on your hand. Once more I say, when the chiefs are in council, and the hosts are melting like snow before the sun, and the earth quakes, and the heavens are filled with thunder, and the shower that falls scorches and crushes and blasts--remember me! I follow the line of wealth: Man of gold! spoil on; here a horse, there a diamond; hundreds to uphold the right, thousands to spare the wrong; both hands full, and broad lands near a city of palaces, and a king's favour, and a nation of slaves beneath thy foot. I follow the line of pleasure: Costly amber; rich embroidery; dark eyes melting for the Croat; glances unveiled for the shaven head, many and loving and beautiful; a garland of roses, all for one--rose by rose plucked and withered and thrown away; one tender bud remaining; cherish it till it blows, and wear it till it dies. I follow the line of blood: it leads towards the rising sun--charging squadrons with lances in rest, and a wild shout in a strange tongue; and the dead wrapped in grey, with charm and amulet that were powerless to save; and hosts of many nations gathered by the sea--pestilence, famine, despair, and victory. Rising on the whirlwind, chief among chiefs, the honoured of leaders, the counsellor of princes--remember me! But ha! the line is crossed. Beware! trust not the sons of the adopted land; when the lily is on thy breast, beware of the dusky shadow on the wall; beware and remember me!"
The gipsy stopped, and clung to him exhausted. For a few paces she was unable to support herself; the prophetic mood past, there was a reaction, and all her powers seemed to fail her at once; but her companion walked on in silence. The eagerness of the Pythoness had impressed even his strong, practical nature, and he seemed himself to look into futurity as he muttered, "If man can win it, I will."
The gipsies travelled but slowly; and although the sun was already high, they had not yet placed many miles between the fugitive and the castle. This, however, was of no great importance. His disguise was so complete, that few would have recognised in the tattered, swarthy vagrant, the smart, soldier-like traveller who had arrived the previous evening at Edeldorf. From the conversation I had overheard in the Ghost's Gallery, I was alone in the secret, which, strange to say, I forbore to confide even to my friend Victor. But I could not forget the steward and his son; it was my first glimpse into the romance of real life, and I could not help feeling a painful interest in his fortunes, and an eager desire to see him at least safe off with his motley company. I was rejoiced, therefore, at Victor's early proposal, made the very instant we had swallowed our breakfasts, that we should take a ride; and notwithstanding my misgivings about a strange pony, for I was always timid on horseback, I willingly accepted his offer of a mount, and jumped into the saddle almost as readily as my little companion, a true Hungarian, with whom,
Like Mad Tom, the chiefest careWas horse to ride and weapon wear.
Like Mad Tom, the chiefest careWas horse to ride and weapon wear.
Like Mad Tom, the chiefest care
Was horse to ride and weapon wear.
Of course, Victor had a complete establishment of ponies belonging to himself; and equally of course, he had detailed to me at great length their several merits and peculiarities, with an authentic biography of his favourite--a stiff little chestnut, rejoicing in the name of "Gold-kind," which, signifying as it does "the golden-child," or darling, he seemed to think an exceedingly happy allusion to the chestnut skin and endearing qualities of his treasure.
Fortunately, my pony was very quiet; and although, when mounted, my playfellow went off at score, we were soon some miles from Edeldorf, without any event occurring to upset my own equilibrium or the sobriety of my steed. Equally fortunately, we took the road by which the gipsies had travelled. Ere long, we overtook the cavalcade as it wound slowly along the plain. Heads were bared to Victor, and blessings called down upon the family of De Rohan; for the old Count was at all times a friend to the friendless, and a refuge to the poor.
"Good luck to you, young Count! shall I tell your fortune?" said one.
"Little, honourable cavalier, give me your hand, and cross it with a 'zwantziger,'" said another.
"Be silent, children, and let me speak to the young De Rohan," said the gipsy queen; and she laid her hand upon his bridle, and fairly brought Gold-kind to a halt.
Victor looked half afraid, although he began to laugh.
"Let me go," said he, tugging vigorously at his reins; "papa desired me not to have my fortune told."
"Not by a common Zingynie," urged the queen, archly; "but I am the mother of all these. My pretty boy, I was at your christening, and have held you in my arms many a time. Let me tell your happy fortune."
Victor began to relent. "If Vere will have his told first, I will," said he, turning half bashfully, half eagerly to me.
I proffered my hand readily to the gipsy, and crossed it with one of the two pieces of silver which constituted the whole of my worldly wealth. The gipsy laughed, and began to prophesy in German. There are some events a child never forgets; and I remember every word she said as well as if it had been spoken yesterday.
"Over the sea, and again over the sea; thou shalt know grief and hardship and losses, and the dove shall be driven from its nest. And the dove's heart shall become like the eagle's, that flies alone, and fleshes her beak in the slain. Beat on, though the poor wings be bruised by the tempest, and the breast be sore, and the heart sink; beat on against the wind, and seek no shelter till thou find thy resting-place at last. The time will come--only beat on."
The woman laughed as she spoke; but there was a kindly tone in her voice and a pitying look in her bright eyes that went straight to my heart. Many a time since, in life, when the storm has indeed been boisterous and the wings so weary, have I thought of those words of encouragement, "The time will come--beat on."
It was now Victor's turn, and he crossed his palm with a golden ducat ere he presented it to the sibyl. This was of itself sufficient to insure him a magnificent future; and as the queen perused the lines on his soft little hand, with its pink fingers, she indulged in anticipations of magnificence proportioned to the handsome donation of the child.
"Thou shalt be a 'De Rohan,' my darling, and I can promise thee no brighter lot,--broad acres, and blessings from the poor, and horses, and wealth, and honours. And the sword shall spare thee, and the battle turn aside to let thee pass. And thou shalt wed a fair bride with dark eyes and a queenly brow; but beware of St. Hubert's Day. Birth and burial, birth and burial--beware of St. Hubert's Day."
"But I want to be a soldier," exclaimed Victor, who seemed much disappointed at the future which was prognosticated for him; "the De Rohans were always soldiers. Mother, can't you make out I shall be a soldier?" still holding the little hand open.
"Farewell, my children," was the only answer vouchsafed by the prophetess. "I can only read, I cannot write: farewell." And setting the troop in order, she motioned to them to continue their march without further delay.
I took advantage of the movement to press near my acquaintance of the day before, whom I had not failed to recognise in his gipsy garb. Poor fellow, my childish heart bled for him, and, in a happy moment, I bethought me of my remaining bit of silver. I stooped from my pony and kissed his forehead, while I squeezed the coin into his hand without a word. The tears came into the deserter's eyes. "God bless you, little man! I shall never forget you," was all he said; but I observed that he bit the coin with his large, strong teeth till it was nearly double, and then placed it carefully in his bosom. We turned our ponies, and were soon out of sight; but I never breathed a syllable to Victor about the fugitive, or the steward, or the Ghost's Gallery, for two whole days. Human nature could keep the secret no longer.
CHAPTER VI
SCHOOL
In one of the pleasantest valleys of sweet Somersetshire stands a large red-brick house that bears unmistakably impressed on its exterior the title "School." You would not take it for a "hall," or an hospital, or an almshouse, or anything in the world but an institution for the rising generation, in which the ways of the wide world are so successfully imitated that, in the qualities of foresight, cunning, duplicity, and general selfishness, the boy may indeed be said to be "father to the man." The house stands on a slope towards the south, with a trim lawn and carefully-kept gravel drive, leading to a front door, of which the steps are always clean and the handles always bright. How a ring at that door-bell used to bring all our hearts into our mouths. Forty boys were we, sitting grudgingly over our lessons on the bright summer forenoons, and not one of us but thought that ring might possibly announce a "something" for him from "home." Home! what was there in the word, that it should call up such visions of happiness, that it should create such a longing, sickening desire to have the wings of a dove and flee away, that it should make the present such a blank and comfortless reality? Why do we persist in sending our children so early to school? A little boy, with all his affections developing themselves, loving and playful and happy, not ashamed to be fond of his sisters, and thinking mamma all that is beautiful and graceful and good, is to be torn from that home which is to him an earthly Paradise, and transferred to a place of which we had better not ask the urchin his own private opinion. We appeal to every mother--and it is a mother who is best capable of judging for a child--whether her darling returns to her improved in her eyes after his first half-year at school. She looks in vain for the pliant, affectionate disposition that a word from her used to be capable, of moulding at will, and finds instead a stubborn self-sufficient spirit that has been called forth by harsh treatment and intercourse with the mimic world of boys; more selfish and more conventional, because less characteristic than that of men. He is impatient of her tenderness now, nay, half ashamed to return it. Already he aspires to be a man, in his own eyes, and thinks it manly to make light of those affections and endearments by which he once set such store. The mother is no longer all in all in his heart, her empire is divided and weakened, soon it will be swept away, and she sighs for the white-frock days when her child was fondly and entirely her own. Now, I cannot help thinking the longer these days last the better. Anxious parent, what do you wish your boy to become? A successful man in after life?--then rear him tenderly and carefully at first. You would not bit a colt at two years old; be not less patient with your own flesh and blood. Nature is the best guide, you may depend. Leave him to the women till his strength is established and his courage high, and when the metal has assumed shape and consistency, to the forge with it as soon as you will. Hardship, buffetings, adversity, all these are good for theyouth, but, for Heaven's sake, spare thechild.
Forty boys are droning away at their tasks on a bright sunshiny morning in June, and I am sitting at an old oak desk, begrimed and splashed with the inkshed of many generations, and hacked by the knives of idler after idler for the last fifty years. I have yet to learn by heart some two score lines from the Æneid. How I hate Virgil whilst I bend over those dog's-eared leaves and that uncomfortable desk. How I envy the white butterfly of which I have just got a glimpse as he soars away into the blue sky--for no terrestrial objects are visible from our schoolroom window to distract our attention and interfere with our labours. I have already accompanied him in fancy over the lawn, and the garden, and the high white-thorn fence into the meadow beyond,--how well I know the deep glades of that copse for which he is making; how I wish I was on my back in its shadow now. Never mind, to-day is a half-holiday, and this afternoon I will spend somehow in a dear delicious ramble through the fairy-land of "out of bounds." The rap of our master's cane against his desk--a gentlemanlike method of awakening attention and asserting authority--startles me from my day-dream. "March," for we drop the Mr. prefixed, in speaking of our pedagogue, "March is a bit of a Tartar, and I tremble for the result."
"Egerton to come up."
Egerton goes up accordingly, with many misgivings, and embarks, like a desperate man, on the loathedinfandum Regina jubes.
The result may be gathered from March's observations as he returns me the book.
"Not a line correct, sir; stand down, sir; the finest passage of the poet shamefully mangled and defaced; it is a perfect disgrace to Everdon. Remain in till five, sir; and repeat the whole lesson to Mr. Manners."
"Please, sir, I tried to learn it, sir; indeed I did, sir."
"Don't tell me, sir;triedto learn it, indeed. If it had been French or German, or--or any of these useless branches of learning, you would have had it by heart fast enough; but Latin, sir, Latin is the foundation of a gentleman's education; Latin you were sent here to acquire, and Latin, sir" (with an astounding rap on the desk), "youshalllearn, or I'll know the reason why."
I may remark that March, though an excellent scholar, professed utter contempt for all but the dead languages.
I determined to make one more effort to save my half-holiday.
"Please, sir, if I might look over it once more, I could say it when the second class goes down; please, sir, won't you give me another chance?"
March was not, in schoolboy parlance, "half a bad fellow," and he did give me another chance, and I came up to him once more at the conclusion of school, having repeated the whole forty lines to myself without missing a word; but, alas! when I stood again on the step which led up to the dreaded desk, and gave away the book into those uncompromising hands, and heard that stern voice with its "Now, sir, begin," my intellects forsook me altogether, and while the floor seemed to rock under me, I made such blunders and confusion of the chief's oration to the love-sick queen, as drove March to the extremity of that very short tether which he was pleased to call his "patience," and drew upon myself the dreaded condemnation I had fought so hard to escape.
"Remain in, sir, till perfect, and repeat to Mr. Manners, without a mistake--Mr. Manners, you will be kind enough to see,without a mistake! Boys!" (with another rap of the cane) "school's up." March locks his desk with a bang, and retires. Mr. Manners puts on his hat. Forty boys burst instantaneously into tumultuous uproar, forty pairs of feet scuffle along the dusty boards, forty voices break into song and jest and glee, forty spirits are emancipated from the prison-house into freedom and air and sunshine--forty, all save one.
So again I turn to theinfandum Eegina Jubes, and sit me down and cry.
I had gone late to school, but I was a backward child in everything save my proficiency in modern languages. I had never known a mother, and the little education I had acquired was picked up in a desultory manner here and there during my travels with my father, and afterwards in a gloomy old library at Alton Grange, his own place in the same county as Mr. March's school. My father had remained abroad till his affairs made it imperative that he should return to England, and for some years we lived in seclusion at Alton, with an establishment that even my boyish penetration could discover was reduced to the narrowest possible limits. I think this was the idlest period of my life. I did no lessons, unless my father's endeavour to teach me painting, an art that I showed year after year less inclination to master, could be called so. I had but few ideas, yet they were very dear ones. I adored my father; on him I lavished all the love that would have been a mother's right; and having no other relations--none in the world that I cared for, or that cared for me, even nurse Nettich having remained in Hungary--my father was all-in-all. I used to wait at his door of a morning to hear him wake, and go away quite satisfied without letting him know. I used to watch him for miles when he rode out, and walk any distance to meet him on his way home. To please him I would even mount a quiet pony that he had bought on purpose for me, and dissemble my terrors because I saw they annoyed my kind father. I was a very shy, timid, and awkward boy, shrinking from strangers with a fear that was positively painful, and liking nothing so well as a huge arm-chair in the gloomy oak wainscoted library, where I would sit by the hour reading old poetry, old plays, old novels, and wandering about till I lost myself in a world of my own creating, full of beauty and romance, and all that ideal life which we must perforce call nonsense, but which, were it reality, would make this earth a heaven. Such was a bad course of training for a boy whose disposition was naturally too dreamy and imaginative, too deficient in energy and practical good sense. Had it gone on I must have become a madman; what is it but madness to live in a world of our own? I shall never forget the break-up of my dreams, the beginning, to me, of hard practical life.
I was coiled up in my favourite attitude, buried in the depths of a huge arm-chair in the library, and devouring with all my senses and all my soul the pages of theMorte d'Arthur, that most voluminous and least instructive of romances, but one for which, to my shame be it said, I confess to this day a sneaking kindness. I was gazing on Queen Guenever, as I pictured her to myself, in scarlet and ermine and pearls, with raven hair plaited over her queenly brow, and soft violet eyes, looking kindly down on mailed Sir Launcelot at her feet. I was holding Arthur's helmet in the forest, as the frank, handsome, stalwart monarch bent over a sparkling rill and cooled his sunburnt cheek, and laved his chestnut beard, whilst the sunbeams flickered through the green leaves and played upon his gleaming corslet and his armour of proof. I was feasting at Camelot with the Knights of the Round Table, jesting with Sir Dinadam, discussing grave subjects of high import with Sir Gawain, or breaking a lance in knightly courtesy with Sir Tristram and Sir Bore; in short, I was a child at a spectacle, but the spectacle came and went, and grew more and more gorgeous at will. In the midst of my dreams in walked my father, and sat down opposite the old arm-chair.
"Vere," said he, "you must go to school."
The announcement took away my breath: I had never, in my wildest moments, contemplated such a calamity.
"To school, papa; and when?" I mustered up courage to ask, clinging like a convict to the hope of a reprieve.
"The first of the month, my boy," answered my father, rather bullying himself into firmness, for I fancy he hated the separation as much as I did; "Mr. March writes me that his scholars will reunite on the first of next month, and he has a vacancy for you. We must make a man of you, Vere; and young De Rohan, your Hungarian friend, is going there too. You will have lots of playfellows, and get on very well, I have no doubt; and Everdon is not so far from here, and--and--you will be very comfortable, I trust; but I am loth to part with you, my dear, and that's the truth."
I felt as if I could have endured martyrdom when my father made this acknowledgment. I could do anything if I was only coaxed and pitied a little; and when I saw he was so unhappy at the idea of our separation, I resolved that no word or look of mine should add to his discomfort, although I felt my heart breaking at the thoughts of bidding him good-bye and leaving the Grange, with its quiet regularity and peaceful associations, for the noise and bustle and discipline of a large school. Queen Guenever and Sir Launcelot faded hopelessly from my mental vision, and in their places rose up stern forms of harsh taskmasters and satirical playfellows, early hours, regular discipline, Latin and Greek, and, worst of all, a continual bustle and a life in a crowd.
There were two peculiarities in my boyish character which, more than any others, unfitted me for battling with the world. I had a morbid dread of ridicule, which made me painfully shy of strangers. I have on many an occasion stood with my hand on the lock of a door, dreading to enter the room in which I heard strange voices, and then, plunging in with a desperate effort, have retired again as abruptly, covered with confusion, and so nervous as to create in the minds of the astonished guests a very natural doubt as to my mental sanity. The other peculiarity was an intense love of solitude. I was quite happy with my father, but if I could not enjoy his society, I preferred my own to that of any other mortal. I would take long walks by myself--I would sit for hours and read by myself--I had a bedroom of my own, into which I hated even a servant to set foot--and perhaps the one thing I dreaded more than all besides in my future life was, that I should never, never, bealone.
How I prized the last few days I spent at home; how I gazed on all the well-known objects as if I should never see them again; how the very chairs and tables seemed to bid me good-bye like old familiar friends. I had none of the lively anticipations which most boys cherish of the manliness and independence arising from a school-life; no long vista of cricket and football, and fame in their own little world, with increasing strength and stature, to end in a tailed coat, and even whiskers! No, I hated the idea of the whole thing. I expected to be miserable at Everdon, and, I freely confess, was not disappointed.
CHAPTER VII
PLAY
Dinner was over, and play-time begun for all but me, and again I turned to theinfandum Regina jubes, and sat me down to cry.
A kind hand, grimed with ink, was laid on my shoulder, a pair of soft blue eyes looked into my face, and Victor de Rohan, my former playfellow, my present fast friend and declared "chum," sat down on the form beside me, and endeavoured to console me in distress.
"I'll help you, Egerton," said the warm-hearted lad; "say it to me; March is a beast, but Manners is a good fellow; Manners will hear you now, and we shall have our half-holiday after all."
"I can't, I can't," was my desponding reply. "Manners won't hear me, I know, till I am perfect, and I never can learn this stupid sing-song story. How I hate Queen Dido--how I hate Virgil. You should read about Guenever, Victor, and King Arthur! I'll tell you about them this afternoon;" and the tears came again into my eyes as I remembered there was no afternoon for me.
"Try once more," said Victor; "I'll get Manners to hear you; leave it to me; I know how to do it. I'll ask Ropsley." And Victor was off into the playground ere I was aware, in search of this valuable auxiliary.
Now, Ropsley was the mainspring round which turned the whole of our little world at Everdon. If an excuse for a holiday could be found, Ropsley was entreated to ask the desired favour of March. If a quarrel had to be adjusted, either in the usual course of ordeal by battle, or the less decisive method of arbitration, Ropsley was always invited to see fair play. He was the king of our little community. It was whispered that he could spar better than Manners, and construe better than March: he was certainly a more perfect linguist--as indeed I could vouch for from my own knowledge--than Schwartz, who came twice a week to teach us a rich German-French. We saw his boots were made by Hoby, and we felt his coats could only be the work of Stulz, for in those days Poole was not, and we were perfectly willing to believe that he wore a scarlet hunting-coat in the Christmas holidays, and had visiting cards of his own. In person he was tall and slim, with a pale complexion, and waving, soft brown hair: without being handsome, he was distinguished-looking; and even as a boy, I have seen strangers turn round and ask who he was; but the peculiar feature of his countenance was his light grey eye, veiled with long black eyelashes. It never seemed to kindle or to waver or to wink; it was always the same, hard, penetrating, and unmoved; it never smiled, though the rest of his features would laugh heartily enough, and it certainly never wept. Even in boyhood it was the eye of a cool, calculating, wary man. He knew the secrets of every boy in the school, but no one ever dreamt of cross-questioning Ropsley. We believed he only stayed at Everdon as a favour to March, who was immensely proud of his pupil's gentlemanlike manners and appearance, as well as of his scholarly proficiency, although no one ever saw him study, and we always expected Ropsley was "going to leave this half." We should not have been the least surprised to hear he had been sent for by the Sovereign, and created a peer of the realm on the spot; with all our various opinions, we were unanimous in one creed--that nothing was impossible for Ropsley, and he need only try, to succeed. For myself, I was dreadfully afraid of this luminary, and looked up to him with feelings of veneration which amounted to positive awe.
Not so Victor; the young Hungarian feared, I believe, nothing on earth, andrespectedbut little. He was the only boy in the school who, despite the difference of age, would talk with Ropsley upon equal terms; and if anything could have added to the admiration with which we regarded the latter, it would have been the accurate knowledge he displayed of De Rohan's family, their history, their place in Hungary, all their belongings, as if he himself had been familiar with Edeldorf from boyhood. But so it was with everything; Ropsley knew all about people in general better than they did themselves.
Victor rushed back triumphantly into the schoolroom, where I still sat desponding at my desk, and Ropsley followed him.
"What's the matter, Vere?" he asked, in a patronising tone, and calling me by my Christian name, which I esteemed a great compliment. "What's the matter?" he repeated; "forty lines of Virgil to say; come, that's not much."
"But Ican'tlearn it," I urged. "You must think me very stupid; and if it was French, or German, or English, I should not mind twice the quantity, but I cannot learn Latin, and it's no use trying."
The older boy sneered; it seemed so easy to him with his powerful mind to get forty lines of hexameters by heart. I believe he could have repeated the wholeÆneidwithout book from beginning to end.
"Do you want to go out to-day, Vere?" said he.
I clasped my hands in supplication, as I replied, "Oh! I would give anything,anything, to get away from this horrid schoolroom, and 'shirk out' with Victor and Bold."
The latter, be it observed, was a dog in whose society I took great delight, and whom I kept in the village, at an outlay of one shilling per week, much to the detriment of my personal fortune.
"Very well," said the great man; "come with me to Manners, and bring your book with you."
So I followed my deliverer into the playground, with theinfandum Reginastill weighing heavily on my soul.
Manners, the usher, was playing cricket with some dozen of the bigger boys, and was in the act of "going for a sixer." His coat and waistcoat were off, and his shirt-sleeves tucked up, disclosing his manly arms bared to the elbow; and Manners was in his glory, for, notwithstanding the beard upon his chin, our usher was as very a boy at heart as the youngest urchin in the lower class. A dandy, too, was Manners, and a wight of an imaginative turn of mind, which chiefly developed itself in the harmless form of bright visions for the future, teeming with romantic adventures, of which he was himself to be the hero. His past he seldom dwelt upon. His aspirations were military--his ideas extravagant. He was great on the Peninsula and Lord Anglesey at Waterloo; and had patent boxes in his high-heeled boots that only required the addition of heavy clanking spurs to complete the illusion that Mr. Manners ought to be a cavalry officer. Of his riding he spoke largely; but his proficiency in this exercise we had no means of ascertaining. There were two things, however, on which Manners prided himself, and which were a source of intense amusement to the urchins by whom he was surrounded:--these were, his personal strength, and his whiskers; the former quality was encouraged to develop itself by earnest application to all manly sports and exercises; the latter ornaments were cultivated and enriched with every description of "nutrifier," "regenerator," and "unguent" known to the hairdresser or the advertiser. Alas! without effect proportioned to the perseverance displayed; two small patches of fluff under the jaw-bones, that showed to greatest advantage by candlelight, being the only evidence of so much painstaking and cultivation thrown away. Of his muscular prowess, however, it behoved us to speak with reverence. Was it not on record in the annals of the school that when the "King of Naples," our dissipated pieman, endeavoured to justify by force an act of dishonesty by which he had done Timmins minor out of half-a-crown, Manners stripped at once to his shirt-sleeves, and "went in" at the Monarch with all the vigour and activity of some three-and-twenty summers against three-score? The Monarch, a truculent old ruffian, with a red neckcloth, half-boots, and one eye, fought gallantly for a few rounds, and was rather getting the best of it, when, somewhat unaccountably, he gave in, leaving the usher master of the field. Ropsley, who gave his friend a knee,secundum artem, and urged him, with frequent injunctions, to "fight high," attributed this easy victory to the forbearance of their antagonist, who had an eye to future trade and mercantile profits; but Manners, whose account of the battle I have heard more than once, always scouted this view of the transaction.
"He went down, sir, as if he was shot," he would say, doubling his arm, and showing the muscles standing out in bold relief. "Few men have the biceps so well developed as mine, and he went downas if he was shot. If I had hit him as hard as I could, sir, Imusthave killed him!"
Our usher was a good-natured fellow, notwithstanding.
"I'll hear you in ten minutes, Egerton," said he, "when I have had my innings;" and forthwith he stretched himself into attitude, and prepared to strike.
"Better give me your bat," remarked Ropsley, who was too lazy to play cricket in a regular manner. Of course, Manners consented; nobody ever refused Ropsley anything; and in ten minutes' time I had repeated theinfandum Regina, and Ropsley had added some dozen masterly hits to the usher's score. Ropsley always liked another man's "innings" better than his own.
Now the regulations at Everdon, as they were excessively strict, and based upon the principle that Apollo should always keep the bow at the utmost degree of tension, so were they eluded upon every available opportunity, and set at nought and laughed at by the youngest urchins in the school. We had an ample playground for our minor sports, and a meadow beyond, in which we were permitted to follow the exhilarating pastime of cricket, the share of the younger boys in that exciting amusement being limited to a pursuit of the ball round the field, and a prompt return of the same to their seniors, doubtless a necessary ingredient in this noble game, but one which is not calculated to excite enthusiastic pleasure in the youthful mind. From the playground and its adjacent meadow it was a capital offence to absent oneself. All the rest of Somersetshire was "out of bounds"; and to be caught "out of bounds" was a crime for which corporal punishment was the invariable reward. At the same time, the offence was, so to speak, "winked at." No inquiries were made as to how we spent half-holidays between one o'clock and seven; and many a glorious ramble we used to have during those precious six hours in all the ecstasy of "freedom,"--a word understood by none better than the schoolboy. A certain deference was, however, exacted to the regulations of the establishment; by a sort of tacit compact, it seemed to be understood that our code was so far Spartan as to make, not the crime, but the being "found out," a punishable offence, and boys were always supposed to take their chance. If seen in the act of escaping, or afterwards met by any of the masters in the surrounding country, we were liable to be flogged; and to do March justice, we alwayswereflogged, and pretty soundly, too. Under these circumstances, some little care and circumspection had to be observed in starting for our rambles. Certain steps had been made in the playground wall, where it was hidden from the house by the stem of a fine old elm, and by dropping quietly down into an orchard beyond--an orchard, be it observed, of which the fruit was always plucked before it reached maturity--and then stealing along the back of a thick, high hedge, we could get fairly away out of sight of the school windows, and so make our escape.
Now, on the afternoon in question we had planned an expedition in which Victor, and I, and my dog Bold had determined to be principal performers. Of the latter personage in the trio I must remark, that no party of pleasure on which we embarked was ever supposed to be perfect without his society. His original possessor was the "King of Naples," whom I have already mentioned, and who, I conclude, stole him, as he appeared one day tied to that personage by an old cotton handkerchief, and looking as wobegone and unhappy as a retriever puppy of some three months old, torn from his mamma and his brothers and sisters, and the comfortable kennel in which he was brought up, and transferred to the tender mercies of a drunken, poaching, dog-stealing ruffian, was likely to feel in so false a position. The "King" brought him into our playground on one of his tart-selling visits, as a specimen of the rarest breed of retrievers known in the West of England. The puppy seemed so thoroughly miserable, and looked up at me so piteously, that I forthwith asked his price, and after a deal of haggling, and a consultation between De Rohan and myself, I determined to become his purchaser, at the munificent sum of one sovereign, of which ten shillings (my all) were to be paid on the spot, and the other ten to remain, so to speak, on mortgage upon the animal, with the further understanding that he should be kept at the residence of the "King of Naples," who, in consideration of the regular payment of one shilling per week, bound himself to feed the same and complete his education in all the canine branches of plunging, diving, fetching and carrying, on a system of his own, which he briefly described as "fust-rate."
With a deal of prompting from Manners, I got through my forty lines; and he shut the book with a good-natured smile as Ropsley threw down the bat he had been wielding so skilfully, and put on his coat.
"Come and lunch with me at 'The Club,'" said he to Manners, whom he led completely by the nose; "I'll give you Dutch cheese, and sherry and soda-water, and a cigar. Hie! Vere, you ungrateful little ruffian, where are you off to? I want you."
I was making my escape as rapidly as possible at the mention of "The Club," a word which we younger boys held in utter fear and detestation, as being associated in our minds with much perilous enterprise and gratuitous suffering. The Club consisted of an old bent tree in a retired corner of the playground, on the trunk of which Ropsley had caused a comfortable seat to be fashioned for his own delectation; and here, in company with Manners and two or three senior boys, it was his custom to sit smoking and drinking curious compounds, of which the ingredients, being contraband, had to be fetched by us, at the risk of corporal punishment, from the village of Everdon, an honest half-mile journey at the least.
Ropsley tendered a large cigar to Manners, lit one himself, settled his long limbs comfortably on the seat, and gave me his orders.
"One Dutch cheese, three pottles of strawberries--now attend, confound you!--two bottles of old sherry from 'The Greyhound,'--mind, the OLD sherry; half-a-dozen of soda-water, and a couple of pork-pies. Put the whole into a basket; they'll give you one at the bar, if you say it's for me, and tell them to put it down to my account. Put a clean napkin over the basket, and if you dirty the napkin or break the bottles, I'll breakyourhead! Now be off! Manners, I'll take your two to one he does it without a mistake, and is back here under the five-and-twenty minutes."
I did not dare disobey, but I was horribly disgusted at having to employ any portion of my half-holiday in so uncongenial a manner. I rushed back into the schoolroom for my cap, and held a hurried consultation with Victor as to our future proceedings.
"He only got you off because he wanted you to 'shirk out' for him," exclaimed my indignant chum; "it's a shame,thatit is. Don't go for him, Vere; let's get out quietly, and be off to Beverley. It's the last chance, so old 'Nap' says" (this was an abbreviation for the "King of Naples," who was in truth a great authority both with Victor and myself); "and it'ssucha beautiful afternoon."
"But what a licking I shall get from Ropsley," I interposed, with considerable misgivings; "he's sure to say I'm an ungrateful little beast. I don't like to be called ungrateful, Victor, and I don't like to be called a little beast."
"Oh, never mind the names, and a licking is soon over," replied Victor, who learned little from hisHoracesave thecarpe diemphilosophy, and who looked upon the licking with considerably more resignation than did the probable recipient. "We shall just have time to do it, if we start now. Come on, old fellow; be plucky for once, and come on."
I was not proof against the temptation. The project was a long-planned one, and I could not bear the thoughts of giving it up now. Many a time in our rambles had we surmounted the hill that looked down upon Beverley Manor, and viewed it from afar as a sort of unknown fairyland. What a golden time one's boyhood was! A day at Beverley was our dream of all that was most exciting in adventure, most voluptuous in delight; and now "Nap" had promised to accompany us to this earthly Paradise, and show us what he was pleased to term its "hins-an'-houts." Not all the cheeses of Holland should prevent my having one day's liberty and enjoyment. I weighed well the price: the certain licking, and the sarcastic abuse which I feared even more; and I think I held my half-holiday all the dearer for having to purchase it at such a cost.
We were across the playground like lapwings. Ropsley, who was deep in his cigar and a copy ofBell's Life, which forbidden paper he caused Manners to take in for him surreptitiously, never dreamed that his behests could be treated with contempt, and hardly turned his head to look at us. We surmounted the wall with an agility born of repeated practice; we stole along the adjacent orchard, under covert of the well-known friendly hedge, and only breathed freely when we found ourselves completely out of sight of the house, and swinging along the Everdon lane at a schoolboy's jog, which, like the Highlander's, is equivalent to any other person's gallop. No pair of carriage horses can step together like two schoolboy "chums" who are in the constant habit of being late in company. Little boys as we were, Victor and I could do our five miles in the hour without much difficulty, keeping step like clockwork, and talking the whole time.
In five minutes we were at the wicket of a small tumble-down building, with dilapidated windows and a ruinous thatched roof, which was in fact the dwelling of no less a personage than the "King of Naples," but was seldom alluded to by that worthy in more definite terms than "the old place," or "my shop"; and this only when in a particularly confidential mood--its existence being usually indicated by a jerk of the head towards his blind side, which was supposed to infer proper caution, and a decorous respect for the sanctity of private life. It was indeed one of those edifices of which the word "tenement" seems alone to convey an adequate description. The garden produce consisted of a ragged shirt and a darned pair of worsted stockings, whilst a venerable buck rabbit looked solemnly out from a hutch on one side of the doorway, and a pair of red-eyed ferrets shed their fragrance from a rough deal box on the other. "Nap" himself was not to be seen on a visitor's first entrance into his habitation, but generally appeared after a mysterious delay, from certain back settlements, of which one never discovered the exact "whereabout." A grimy old woman, with her skirts pinned up, was invariably washing the staircase when we called, and it was only in obedience to her summons that "Nap" himself could be brought forward. This dame possessed a superstitious interest in the eyes of us boys, on account of the mysterious relationship in which she stood to "Nap." He always addressed her as "mother"--but no boy at Everdon had yet ascertained whether this was a generic term significant of age and sex, an appellation of endearment to a spouse, or a tribute of filial reverence from a son.
"Come, 'Nap,' look alive," halloed Victor, as we rushed up the narrow path that led from the wicket to the door, in breathless haste not to lose the precious moments of our half-holiday. "Now, mother, where is he?" added the lively young truant. "Time's up; 'Nap'--'Nap'!"--and the walls echoed to Victor's rich, laughing voice, and half-foreign accent. As usual, after an interval of a few minutes, "Nap" himself appeared at the back door of the cottage, with a pair of greased half-boots in one hand, and a ferret, that nestled confidingly against his cheek, in the other.
"Sarvice, young gen'elmen," said "Nap," wiping his mouth with the back of his hand--"Sarvice, my lord; sarvice, Muster Egerton," repeated he, on recognising his two stanchest patrons. "Here, Bold! Bold!--you do know your master, sure*lie*," as Bold came rollicking forth from the back-yard in which he lived, and testified his delight by many ungainly gambols and puppy-like freedoms, which were responded to as warmly by his delighted owner. My scale of affections at this period of life was easily defined. I loved three objects in the world--viz., my father, Victor, and Bold. I verily believe I cared for nothing on earth but those three; and certainly my dog came in for his share of regard. Bold, although in all the awkwardness of puppyhood, was already beginning to show symptoms of that sagacity which afterwards developed itself into something very few degrees inferior to reason, if indeed it partook not of that faculty which we men are anxious to assume as solely our own. He would already obey the slightest sign--would come to heel at a whisper from his owner or instructor--would drag up huge stones out of ten feet of water, with ludicrous energy and perseverance; and stand waiting for further orders with his head on one side, and an expression of comic intelligence on his handsome countenance that was delightfully ridiculous. He promised to be of great size and strength; and even at this period, when he put his forepaws on my shoulders and licked my face, he was considerably the larger animal of the two. Such familiarities, however, were much discouraged by "Nap."
"If so be as you would keep a 'dawg,' real sporting and dawg-like, master," that philosopher would observe, "let un know his distance; I strikes 'em whenever I can reach 'em. Fondlin' of 'em only spiles 'em--same as women."