One Of Them

By dint of immense effort, and sacrifices the most painful, he succeeded in entering his boy at Cambridge; but in his last year, his means failing, he had obtained a tutorship for him, – no less a charge than that of the young Marquis of Agincourt, – an appointment to which his college tutor had recommended him. Almost immediately after this, a vacancy occurring in the little village of Ballintray for a dispensary doctor, Layton applied for the appointment, and obtained it. Few, indeed, of the electors had ever heard of his name, but all were astonished at the ample qualifications tendered by one willing to accept such humble duties. The rector of the parish, Dr. Millar, was, though his junior, perhaps, the only one well conversant with Layton’s story, for he had been his contemporary at the University.

On the two or three occasions on which they met, Dr. Millar never evinced by the slightest allusion any knowledge of the other’s antecedents. He even, by adroit reference to English life and habits, in contradistinction to Irish, seemed to infer that his experiences were more at home there; and whatever might have been Layton’s own secret promptings, there was nothing in the clergyman’s manner to provoke the slightest constraint or awkwardness.

The reader is now sufficiently informed to accompany us to the little cottage on the beach of Port-na-Whapple. It is a warm autumnal afternoon, the air calm and still, but the great sea comes heaving in, wave swelling after wave, as though moved by a storm. Strange contrast to that loud thundering ocean the little peaceful cottage, whose blue smoke rises in a thin, straight column into the air. The door is open, and a few ducks, with their young brood, are waddling up and down the blue stone step, as though educating their young in feats of difficulty and daring. On a coarse wooden perch within the hall sits a very old gray parrot, so old that his feathers have assumed a sort of half-woolly look, and his bleared eyes only open at intervals, as though he had seen quite enough of this world already, and could afford to take it easily. In the attitude of the head, partially thrown forward and slightly on one side, there is a mock air of thought and reflection, marvellously aided by a habit the creature has of muttering to himself such little broken ends of speech as he possesses. Layton had bought him a great many years back, having fancied he could detect a resemblance in him to a once famed vice-provost of Trinity, after whom he called him “Dr. Barret,” a name the bird felt proud of, as well he might, and seemed even now, in his half dotage, to warm up on hearing it. Through the open door of a little room adjoining might be seen a very pale, sickly woman, who coughed almost incessantly as she bent over an embroidery-frame. Though not much more than middle-aged, her hair was perfectly white, and deep discolorations – the track of tears for many a day – marked her worn cheeks.

On the opposite side of the hall, in a small room whose furniture was an humble truckle-bed, and a few shelves with physic-bottles, the doctor was engaged at his toilet, if by so pretentious a term we may record the few preparations he was making to render his every-day appearance more presentable. As he stood thus in trousers and shirt, his broad chest and powerful neck exposed, he seemed to testify even yet to the athletic vigor of one who was known as the best hurler and racket-player of his day. He had been swimming a long stretch far out to sea, and air and exercise together had effaced many of those signs of dissipation which his face usually wore, while in his voice there was a frank boldness that only came back to him at some rare intervals.

“I can fancy, Grace,” cried he, loud enough to be heard across the hall, “that Millar is quite proud of his condescension. The great rector of the parish, man of fortune besides, stooping to invite the dispensary doctor! Twelve hundred per annum associating with eighty! To be sure he says, ‘You will only meet two friends and neighbors of mine,’ as though to intimate, ‘I am doing this on the sly; I don’t mean to make you a guest on field-days.’”

She muttered something, speedily interrupted by a cough; and he, not caring to catch her words, went on: —

“It is a politeness that cuts both ways, and makes me as uncomfortable as him. This waistcoat has a beggarly account of empty button-holes; and as for my coat, nothing but a dim candle-light would screen its deficiencies. I was a fool to accept!” cried he, impatiently.

“Don’t go, Tom! don’t go!” screamed the parrot, addressing him by a familiar sobriquet.

“And why not, doctor?” said Layton, laughing at the apropos.

“Don’t go! don’t go!” repeated the bird.

“Give me your reasons, old boy, and not impossible is it I ‘ll agree with you. What do you say, Grace?” added he, advancing to the door of his room the better to catch her words.

“It is to them the honor is done, not to you,” said she, faintly, and as though the speech cost her heavily.

“Very hard to persuade the rector of that, – very hard to convince the man of silver side-dishes and cut decanters that he is not the patron of him who dines off Delf and drinks out of pewter. Is this cravat too ragged, Grace? I think I ‘d better wear my black one.”

“Yes, the black one,” said she, coughing painfully.

“After all, it is no grand occasion, – a little party of four.”

“What a swell! what a swell!” shrieked the parrot.

“Ain’t I? By Jove,” laughed Layton, “the doctor is marvellous in his remarks to-day.”

“There, I have done my best with such scanty ‘properties,’” said he, as he turned away from the glass. “The greatest peril to a shabby man is the self-imposed obligation to show he is better than he looks. It is an almost invariable blunder.”

She muttered something inaudibly, and, as usual, he went on with his own thoughts.

“One either assumes a more dictatorial tone, or takes more than his share of the talk, or is more apt to contradict the great man of the company, – at least I do.”

“Don’t go, Tom! don’t! don’t!” called out Dr. Barret.

“Not go? – after all these splendid preparations!” said Layton, with a laugh. “After yourself exclaiming, ‘What a swell!’”

“It ‘ll never pay, – never pay, – never pay!” croaked out Poll.

“That I’m sure of, doctor. I never knew one of these politic things that did; but yet we go on through life practising them in the face of all their failure, dancing attendance at levées, loitering in antechambers, all to be remembered by some great man who is just as likely to hate the sight of us. However, this shall be my last transgression.”

The faint female voice muttered some indistinct words about what he “owed to himself,” and the “rightful station that belonged to him;” but he speedily cut the reflection short as he said: “So long as a man is poor as I am, he can only hold his head high by total estrangement from the world. Let him dare to mix with it, and his threadbare coat and patched shoes will soon convince him that they will extend no equality to him who comes among them in such beggarly fashion. With what authority, I ask, can he speak, whose very poverty refutes his sentiments, and the simple question stands forth unanswerable: ‘If this man knew so much, why is he as we see him?’”

“This is, then, to say that misfortune is never unmerited. Surely you do not mean that, Herbert?” said she, with an eagerness almost painful.

“It is exactly what I would say, – that for all the purposes of worldly judgments upon men, there is no easier rule than to assume that they who fail deserve failure. Richelieu never asked those who sought high command, ‘Are you skilful in the field? are you clever in strategy?’ but’ ‘Are you lucky?’”

A deep sigh was her only answer.

“I wonder who Millar’s fourth man is to be? Colonel Karstairs, I know, is one; a man of importance to me, Grace,” said he, laughing; “a two-guinea subscriber to the dispensary! How I wish I were in a more fitting spirit of submissiveness to my betters; and, by ill fortune, this is one of my rebellious days!”

“Don’t go, Tom! Don’t go, I say!” yelled out Poll.

“Prophet of evil, and evil prophet, hold your tongue! I will go,” said he, sternly, and as if answering a responsible adviser; and setting his hat on, with a certain air of dogged defiance, he left the house.

His wife arose, and with feeble steps tottered to the door of the cottage to look after him. A few steps brought him to the foot of the cliff, up the steep face of which a zigzag path led upwards for fully four hundred feet, a narrow track trodden by the bare feet of hardy mountaineers into some semblance of a pathway, but such as few denizens of towns would willingly have taken. Layton, however, stepped along like one whose foot was not new to the heather; nay, the very nature of the ascent, the bracing air of the sea, and something in the peril itself of the way, seemed to revive in the man his ancient vigor; and few, seeing him from the beach below, as he boldly breasted the steep bluff, or sprang lightly over some fissured chasm, would have deemed him one long since past the prime of life, – one who had spent more than youth, and its ambitions, in excess.

At first, the spirit to press onward appeared to possess him entirely; but ere he reached the half ascent, he turned to look down on the yellow strip of strand and the little cottage, up to whose very door-sill now the foam seemed curling. Never before had its isolation seemed so complete. Not a sail was to be seen seaward, not even a gull broke the stillness with his cry; a low, mournful plash, with now and then a rumbling half thunder, as the sea resounded within some rocky cavern, were the only sounds, and Layton sat down on a mossy ledge, to drink in the solitude in all its fulness. Amidst thoughts of mingled pain and pleasure, memories of long-past struggles, college triumphs and college friendships, came dreary recollections of dark reverses, when the world seemed to fall back from him, and leave him to isolation. Few had ever started with more ambitious yearnings, – few with more personal assurances of success. Whatever he tried he was sure to be told, “There lies your road, Layton; that is the path will lead you to high rewards.” He had, besides, – strange inexplicable gift, – that prestige of superiority about him that made men cede the place to him, as if by prescription. “And what had come of it all? – what had come of it all?” he cried out aloud, suddenly awaking out of the past to face the present. “Why have I failed?” asked he wildly of himself. “Is it that others have passed me in the race? Have my successes been discovered to have been gained by trick or fraud? Have my acquirements been pronounced mere pretensions? These, surely, cannot be alleged of one whose fame can be attested by almost every scientific and literary journal of the empire. No, no! the explanation is easier, – the poet was wrong, – Fortune is a Deity, and some men are born to be unlucky.”

With a sudden start he arose, and rallied from these musings. He quickly bethought himself of his engagement, and continued his way upward. When he reached the tableland at top, it wanted but a few minutes of five o’clock, and five was the hour for which he was invited, and there was yet two miles to walk to the Rectory. Any one who has lived for a considerable space estranged from society and its requirements, will own to the sense of slavery impressed by a return to the habits of the world. He will feel that every ordinance is a tyranny, and the necessity of being dressed for this, or punctual for that, a downright bondage.

Thus chafing and irritable, Layton walked along. Never was man less disposed to accept hospitality as a polite attention, and more than once did he halt, irresolute whether he should not retrace his steps towards home. “No man,” thought he, “could get off more cheaply. They would ascribe it all to my ignorance. What should a poor devil with eighty pounds a year know of politeness? and when I had said, I had forgotten the invitation, they would forget me!”

Thus self-accusing and self-disparaging, he reached the little avenue gate, which by a trim gravel walk led up to the parsonage. The neat lodge, with its rustic porch, all overgrown with a rich japonica, – the well-kept road, along whose sides two little paved channels conducted the water, – the flower-plats at intervals in the smooth emerald turf, were all assurances of care and propriety; and as Layton marked them, he muttered, “This is one of the lucky ones.”

As Layton moved on with laggard step, he halted frequently to mark some new device or other of ornamental gardening. Now it was a tasteful group of rock-work, over which gracefully creepers hung in festoons; now it was a little knot of flowering shrubs, so artfully intermingled as to seem as though growing from a single stem; now a tiny fishpond could be descried through the foliage; even the rustic seats, placed at points of commanding view, seemed to say how much the whole scene had been planned for enjoyment, and that every tint of foliage, every undulation of the sward, every distant glimpse caught through a narrow vista, had all been artfully contrived to yield its share of pleasure.

“I wonder,” muttered he, bitterly, to himself, – “I wonder when this man preaches on a Sunday against wealth and its temptations, reminding others that out of this world men take nothing, but go out upon their new pilgrimage naked and poor, does he ever turn a thought to all these things, so beautiful now, and with that vitality that will make them beautiful years and years after he himself has become dust? I have little doubt,” added he, hurriedly, “that he says all this, and believes it too. Here am I, after just as many determinations to eat no man’s salt, nor sit down to any board better than my own, – here I am to-day creeping like a poor parasite to a great man’s table, – ay, he is a great man to me!

“How strange is the casuistry, too, with which humble people like myself persuade themselves that they go into the world against their will; that they do so purely from motives of policy, forgetting all the while how ignoble is the motive they lay claim to.

“The old Roman moralist told us that poverty had no heavier infliction in its train than that it made men ridiculous, but I tell him he is wrong. It makes men untrue to themselves, false to their own hearts, enemies to their own convictions, doing twenty things every day of their lives that they affect to deem prudent, and know to be contemptible. I wish my worthy host had left me unnoticed!”

He was at last at the door, and rang the bell with the impatient boldness of one chafing and angry with himself. There was a short delay, for the servants were all engaged in the dining-room, and Layton rang again.

“Dr. Millar at home?” asked he, sternly, of the well-powdered footman who stood before him.

“Yes, sir; he’s at dinner.”

“At dinner! I was invited to dinner!”

“I know, sir; and the doctor waited for half an hour beyond the time; but he has only gone in this moment.”

It is just possible, in Layton’s then frame of mind, that he had turned away and left the house, never to re-enter it, when a slight circumstance determined him to the opposite. This was the footman’s respectful manner as he took the hat from his hand, and threw wide the door for him to pass onward. Ay, it is ever so! Things too trivial and insignificant for notice in this life are every hour influencing our actions and swaying our motives. Men have stormed a breach for a smile, and gone out in black despair with life just for a cold word or a cold look. So much more quickly does the heart influence than the head, even with the very cleverest amongst us.

As Layton entered the dining-room, his host rose to receive him, and, with a polished courtesy, apologized for having gone to table before his arrival. “I gave you half an hour, doctor, and I would have given you longer, but that I am aware a physician is not always master of his time. Colonel Karstairs you are acquainted with. Let me present you to Mr. Ogden. Dr. Layton, Mr. Ogden.”

There is no manner that so impresses the world with the idea of self-sufficiency and pretension as that of the bashful man contending against his own diffidence; and this same timidity, that one would imagine so easily rubbed off by contact with the world, actually increases with age, and, however glossed over by an assumed ease and a seeming indifference, lives to torment its possessor to his last day. Of this Layton was an unhappy victim, and while imbued with a consummate self-esteem, he had a painful consciousness of the criticism that his manner and breeding might call forth. The result of this conflict was to render him stern, defiant, and even overbearing, – traits which imparted their character even to his features in first intercourse with strangers.

“I don’t know how Halford managed it,” said Mr. Ogden, as he reseated himself at table, “but I ‘ve heard him say that his professional engagements never lost him a dinner.”

Simple as were these words, they contained a rebuke, and the air of the man that uttered them did not diminish their significance.