A Day's Ride: A Life's Romance

With this act, I felt I had done with the past, and now addressed myself to the future. I purchased a few cheap necessaries for the road, as few and as cheap as was well possible. I said to myself, Fortune shall lift you from the very dust of the high-road, Potts; not one advantageous adjunct shall aid your elevation!

The train by which I was to leave did not start till noon, and to while away time I took up a number of the “Times,” which the “Goat” appeared to receive at third or fourth hand. My eye fell upon that memorable second column, in which I read the following: —

“Left his home in Dublin on the 8th ult, and not since been heard of, a young gentleman, aged about twenty-two years, five feet nine and a quarter in height, slightly formed, and rather stooped in the shoulders; features pale and melancholy; eyes grayish, inclining to hazel; hair light brown, and worn long behind. He had on at his departure – ”

I turned impatiently to the foot of the advertisement, and found that to any one giving such information as might lead to his discovery was promised a liberal reward, on application to Messrs. Potts and Co., compounding chemists and apothecaries, Mary’s Abbey. I actually grew sick with anger as I read this. To what end was it that I built up a glorious edifice of imaginative architecture, if by one miserable touch of coarse fact it would crumble into clay? To what purpose did I intrigue with Fortune to grant me a special destiny, if I were thus to be classed with runaway traders or strayed terriers? I believe in my heart I could better have borne all the terrors of a charge of felony than the lowering, debasing, humiliating condition of being advertised for on a reward.

I had long since determined to be free as regarded the ties of country. I now resolved to be equally so with respect to those of family. I will be Potts no longer. I will call myself for the future – let me see – what shall it be, that will not involve a continued exercise of memory, and the troublesome task of unmarking my linen? I was forgetting in this that I had none, all my wearables being left behind at the Rosary. Something with an initial P was requisite; and after much canvassing, I fixed on Pottinger. If by an unhappy chance I should meet one who remembered me as Potts, I reserved the right of mildly correcting him by saying, “Pottinger, Pottinger! the name Potts was given me when at Eton for shortness.” They tell us that amongst the days of our exultation in life, few can compare with that in which we exchange a jacket for a tailed coat. The spring from the tadpole to the full-grown frog, the emancipation from boyhood into adolescence, is certainly very fascinating. Let me assure my reader that the bound from a monosyllabic name to a high-sounding epithet of three syllables is almost as enchanting as this assumption of the toga virilis. I had often felt the terrible brevity of Potts; I had shrunk from answering the question, “What name, sir?” from the indescribable shame of saying “Potts;” but Pottinger could be uttered slowly and with dignity. One could repose on the initial syllable, as if to say, “Mark well what I am saying; this is a name to be remembered.” With that, there must have been great and distinguished Pottingers, rich men, men of influence and acres; from these I could at leisure select a parentage.

“Do you go by the twelve-fifteen train, sir?” asked the waiter, breaking in upon these meditations. “You have no time to lose, sir.”

With a start, I saw it was already past twelve; so I paid my bill with all speed, and, taking my knapsack in my hand, hurried away to the train. There was considerable confusion as I arrived, a crush of cabs, watermen, and porters blocked the way, and the two currents of an arriving and departing train struggled against and confronted each other. Amongst those who, like myself, were bent on entering the station-house, was a young lady in deep mourning, whose frail proportions and delicate figure gave no prospect of resisting the shock and conflict before her. Seeing her so destitute of all protection, I espoused her cause, and after a valorous effort and much buffeting, I fought her way for her to the ticket-window, but only in time to hear the odious crash of a great bell, the bang of a glass door, and the cry of a policeman on duty, “No more tickets, gentlemen; the train is starting.”

“Oh! what shall I do?” cried she, in an accent of intense agony, inadvertently addressing the words to myself: “What shall I do?”

“There ‘s another train to start at three-forty,” said I, consolingly. “I hope that waiting will be no inconvenience to you. It is a slow one, to be sure, stops everywhere, and only arrives in town at two o’clock in the morning.”

I heard her sob, – I distinctly heard her sob behind her thick black veil as I said this; and to offer what amount of comfort I could, I added, “I, too, am disappointed, and obliged to await the next departure; and if I can be of the least service in any way – ”

“Oh, no, sir! I am very grateful to you, but there is nothing – I mean – there is no help for it!” And here her voice dropped to a mere whisper.

“I sincerely trust,” said I, in an accent of great deference and sympathy, “that the delay may not be the cause of grave inconvenience to you; and although a perfect stranger, if any assistance I can offer – ”

“No, sir; there is really nothing I could ask from your kindness.” It was in turning back to bid good-bye a second time to my mother – Here her agitation seemed to choke her, for she turned away and said no more.

“Shall I fetch a cab for you?” I asked. “Would you like to go back till the next train starts?”

“Oh, by no means, sir! We live three miles from Milford; and, besides, I could not bear – ” Here again she broke down, but added, after a pause, “It is the first time I have been away from home!”

With a little gentle force I succeeded in inducing her to enter the refreshment-room of the station, but she would take nothing; and after some attempts to engage her in conversation to while away the dreary time, I perceived that it would be a more true politeness not to obtrude upon her sorrow; and so I lighted my cigar, and proceeded to walk up and down the long terrace of the station. Three trunks, or rather two and a hat-box, kept my knapsack company on the side of the tramway; and on these I read, inscribed in a large band, “Miss K. Herbert, per steamer ‘Ardent,’ Ostend.” I started. Was it not in that direction my own steps were turned? Was not Blondel in Belgium, and was it not in search of him that I was bent? “Oh, Fate!” I cried, “what subtle device of thine is this? What wily artifice art thou now engaged in? Is this a snare, or is it an aid? Hast thou any secret purpose in this rencontre? for with thee there are no chances, no accidents in thy vicissitudes; all is prepared and fitted, like a piece of door carpentry.” And then I fell into weaving a story for the young lady. She was an orphan. Her father, the curate of the little parish she lived in, had just died, leaving herself and her mother in direst distress. She was leaving home, – the happy home of her childhood (I saw it all before me, – cottage, and garden, and little lawn, with its one cow and two sheep, and the small green wicket beside the road), and she was leaving all these to become a governess to an upstart, mill-owning, vulgar family at Brussels. Poor thing! how my heart bled for her! What a life of misery lay before her, – what trials of temper and of pride! The odious children – I know they are odious – will torture her to the quick; and Mrs. Treddles, or whatever her detestable name is, will lead her a terrible life from jealousy; and she ‘ll have to bear everything, and cry over it in secret, remembering the once happy time in that honeysuckled porch, where poor papa used to read Wordsworth for them.

What a world of sorrow on every side; and how easily might it be made otherwise! What gigantic efforts are we forever making for something which we never live to enjoy I Striving to be freer, greater, better governed, and more lightly taxed, and all the while forgetting that the real secret is to be on better terms with each other, – more generous, more forgiving, less apt to take offence or bear malice. Of mere material goods, there is far more than we need. The table would accommodate more than double the guests, could we only agree to sit down in orderly fashion; but here we have one occupying three chairs, while another crouches on the floor, and some even prefer smashing the furniture to letting some more humbly born take a place near them. I wish they would listen to me on this theme. I wish, instead of all this social science humbug and art-union balderdash, they would hearken to the voice of a plain man, saying, Are you not members of one family, – the individuals of one household? Is it not clear to you, if you extend the kindly affections you now reserve for the narrow circle wherein you live to the wider area of mankind, that, while diffusing countless blessings to others, you will yourself become better, more charitable, more kind-hearted, wider in reach of thought, more catholic in philanthropy? I can imagine such a world, and feel it to be a Paradise, – a world with no social distinctions, no inequalities of condition, and, consequently, no insolent pride of station, nor any degrading subserviency of demeanor, no rivalries, no jealousies, – love and benevolence everywhere. In such a sphere the calm equanimity of mind by which great things are accomplished, would in itself constitute a perfect heaven. No impatience of temper, no passing irritation —

“Where the – are you driving to, sir?” cried I, as a fellow with a brass-bound trunk in a hand-barrow came smash against my shin.

“Don’t you see, sir, the train is just starting?” said he, hastening on; and I now perceived that such was the case, and that I had barely time to rush down to the pay-office and secure my ticket.

“What class, sir?” cried the clerk.

“Which has she taken?” said I, forgetting all save the current of my own thoughts.

“First or second, sir?” repeated he, impatiently.

“Either, or both,” replied I, in confusion; and he flung me back some change and a blue card, closing the little shutter with a bang that announced the end of all colloquy.

“Get in, sir!”

“Which carriage?”

“Get in, sir!”

“Second-class? Here you are!” called out an official, as he thrust me almost rudely into a vile mob of travellers.

The bell rang out, and two snorts and a scream followed, then a heave and a jerk, and away we went As soon as I had time to look around me, I saw that my companions were all persons of an humble order of the middle class, – the small shopkeepers and traders, probably, of the locality we were leaving. Their easy recognition of each other, and the natural way their conversation took up local matters, soon satisfied me of this fact, and reconciled me to fall back upon my own thoughts for occupation and amusement This was with me the usual prelude to a sleep, to which I was quietly composing myself soon after. The droppings of the conversation around me, however, prevented this; for the talk had taken a discussional tone, and the differences of opinion were numerous. The question debated was, Whether a certain Sir Samuel Somebody was a great rogue, or only unfortunate? The reasons for either opinion were well put and defended, showing that the company, like most others of that class in life in England, had cultivated their faculties of judgment and investigation by the habit of attending trials or reading reports of them in newspapers.

After the discussion on his morality, came the question, Was he alive or dead?

“Sir Samuel never shot himself, sir,” said a short pluffy man with an asthma. “I ‘ve known him for years, and I can say he was not a man to do such an act.”

“Well, sir, the Ostrich and the United Brethren offices are both of your opinion,” said another; “they ‘ll not pay the policy on his life.”

“The law only recognizes death on production of the body,” sagely observed a man in shabby black, with a satin neckcloth, and whom I afterwards perceived was regarded as a legal authority.

“What’s to be done, then, if a man be drowned at sea, or burned to a cinder in a lime-kiln?”

“Ay, or by what they call spontaneous combustion, that does n’t leave a shred of you?” cried three objectors in turn.

“The law provides for these emergencies with its usual wisdom, gentlemen. Where death may not be actually proven it can be often inferred.”

“But who says that Sir Samuel is dead?” broke in the asthmatic man, evidently impatient at the didactic tone of the attorney. “All we know of the matter is a letter of his own signing, that when these lines are read I shall be no more. Now, is that sufficient evidence of death to induce an insurance company to hand over some eight or ten thousand pounds to his family?”

“I believe you might say thirty thousand, sir,” suggested a mild voice from the corner.

“Nothing of the kind,” interposed another; “the really heavy policies on his life were held by an old Cumberland baronet, Sir Elkanah Crofton, who first established Whalley in the iron trade. I ‘ve heard it from my father fifty times, when a child, that Sam Whalley entered Milford in a fustian jacket, with all his traps in a handkerchief.”

At the mention of Sir Elkanah Crofton, my attention was quickly excited; this was the uncle of my friends at the Rosary, and I was at once curious to hear more of him.

“Fustian jacket or not, he had a good head on his shoulders,” remarked one.

“And luck, sir; luck, which is better than any head,” sighed the meek man, sorrowfully.

“I deny that, deny it totally,” broke in he of the asthma. “If Sam Whalley hadn’t been a man of first-rate order, he never could have made that concern what it was, – the first foundry in Wales.”

“And what is it now, and where is he?” asked the attorney, triumphantly.

“At rest, I hope,” murmured the sad man.

“Not a bit of it, sir,” said the wheezing voice, in a tone of confidence; “take my word for it, he ‘s alive and hearty, somewhere or other, ay, and we ‘ll hear of him one of these days: he ‘ll be smelting metals in Africa, or cutting a canal through the Isthmus of Heaven knows what, or prime minister of one of those rajahs in India. He’s a clever dog, and he knows it too. I saw what he thought of himself the day old Sir Elkanah came down to Fairbridge.”

“To be sure, you were there that morning,” said the attorney; “tell us about that meeting.”

“It’s soon told,” resumed the other. “When Sir Elkanah Crofton arrived at the house, we were all in the garden. Sir Samuel had taken me there to see some tulips, which he said were the finest in Europe, except some at the Hague. Maybe it was that the old baronet was vexed at seeing nobody come to meet him, or that something else had crossed him, but as he entered the garden I saw he was sorely out of temper.

“‘How d’ye do, Sir Elkanah?’ said Whalley to him, coming up pleasantly. 'We scarcely expected you before dinner-time. My wife and my daughters,’ said he, introducing them; but the other only removed his hat ceremoniously, without ever noticing them in the least.

“‘I hope you had a pleasant journey, Sir Elkanah?’ said Whalley, after a pause, while, with a short jerk of his head, he made signs to the ladies to leave them.

“‘I trust I am not the means of breaking up a family party?’ said the other, half sarcastically. ‘Is Mrs. Whalley – ’