A Day's Ride: A Life's Romance

“Though no volcano’s lurid light
Over thy bine sea steals along,
Nor Pescator beguiles the night
With cadence of his simple song;

“Though none of dark Calabria’s daughters
With tinkling lute thy echoes wake,
Mingling their voices with the waters,
As ‘neath the prow the ripples break;

“Although no cliffs with myrtle crown’d,
Reflected in thy tide, are seen,
Nor olives, bending to the ground,
Relieve the laurel’s darker green;

“Yet – yet – ”

Ah, there was the difficulty, – I had begun with the plaintiff, and I really had n’t a word to say for the defendant; and so, voting comparisons odious, I set forward on my journey.

As I rode into Enniskerry to breakfast, I had the satisfaction of overhearing some very flattering comments upon Blondel, which rather consoled me for some less laudatory remarks upon my own horsemanship. By the way, can there possibly be a more ignorant sarcasm than to say a man rides like a tailor? Why, of all trades, who so constantly sits straddle-legged as a tailor? and yet he is especial mark of this impertinence.

I pushed briskly on after breakfast, and soon found myself in the deep shady woods that lead to the Dargle. I hurried through the picturesque demesne, associated as it was with a thousand little vulgar incidents of city junketings, and rode on for the Glen of the Downs. Blondel and I had now established a most admirable understanding with each other. It was a sort of reciprocity by which I bound myself never to control him, he in turn consenting not to unseat me. He gave the initiative to the system, by setting off at his pleasant little rocking canter whenever he chanced upon a bit of favorable ground, and invariably pulled up when the road was stony or uneven; thus showing me that he was a beast with what Lord Brougham would call “a wise discretion.” In like manner he would halt to pluck any stray ears of wild oats that grew along the hedge sides, and occasionally slake his thirst at convenient streamlets. If I dismounted to walk at his side, he moved along unheld, his head almost touching my elbow, and his plaintive blue eye mildly beaming on me with an expression that almost spoke, – nay, it did speak. I ‘m sure I felt it, as though I could swear to it, whispering, “Yes, Potts, two more friendless creatures than ourselves are not easy to find. The world wants not either of us; not that we abuse it, despise it, or treat it ungenerously, – rather the reverse, we incline favorably towards it, and would, occasion serving, befriend it; but we are not, so to say, ‘of it.’ There may be, here and there, a man or a horse that would understand or appreciate us, but they stand alone, – they are not belonging to classes. They are, like ourselves, exceptional.” If his expression said this much, there was much unspoken melancholy in his sad glance, also, which seemed to say, “What a deal of sorrow could I reveal if I might! – what injuries, what wrong, what cruel misconceptions of my nature and disposition, what mistaken notions of my character and intentions! What pretentious stupidity, too, have I seen preferred before me, – creatures with, mayhap, a glossier coat or a more silky forelock – ” “Ah, Blondel, take courage, – men are just as ungenerous, just as erring!” “Not that I have not had my triumphs, too,” he seemed to say, as, cocking his ears, and ambling with a more elevated toss of the head, his tail would describe an arch like a waterfall; “no salmon-colored silk stockings danced sarabands on my back; I was always ridden in the Haute École by Monsieur l’Etrier himself, the stately gentleman in jackboots and long-waisted dress-coat, whose five minutes no persuasive bravos could ever prolong.” I thought – nay, I was certain at times – that I could read in his thoughtful face the painful sorrows of one who had outlived popular favor, and who had survived to see himself supplanted and dethroned.

There are no two destinies which chime in so well together as that of him who is beaten down by sheer distrust of himself, and that of the man who has seen better days. Although the one be just entering on life, while the other is going out of it, if they meet on the threshold, they stop to form a friendship. Now, though Blondel was not a man, he supplied to my friendlessness the place of one.

The sun was near its setting, as I rode down the little hill into the village of Ashford, a picturesque little spot in the midst of mountains, and with a bright clear stream bounding through it, as fearlessly as though in all the liberty of open country. I tried to make my entrance what stage people call effective. I threw myself, albeit a little jaded, into an attitude of easy indifference, slouched my hat to one side, and suffered the sprig of laburnum, with which I had adorned it, to droop in graceful guise over one shoulder. The villagers stared; some saluted me; and taken, perhaps, by the cool acquiescence of my manner, as I returned the courtesy, seemed well disposed to believe me of some note.

I rode into the little stable-yard of the “Lamb” and dismounted. I gave up my horse, and walked into the inn. I don’t know how others feel it, – I greatly doubt if they will have the honesty to tell, – but for myself, I confess that I never entered an inn or an hotel without a most uncomfortable conflict within: a struggle made up of two very antagonistic impulses, – the wish to seem something important, and a lively terror lest the pretence should turn out to be costly. Thus swayed by opposing motives, I sought a compromise by assuming that I was incog.; for the present a nobody, to be treated without any marked attention, and to whom the acme of respect would be a seeming indifference.

“What is your village called?” I said, carelessly, to the waiter, as he laid the cloth.

“Ashford, your honor. ‘T is down in all the books,” answered the waiter.

“Is it noted for anything, or is there anything remarkable in the neighborhood?”

“Indeed, there is, sir, and plenty. There’s Glenmalure and the Devil’s Glen; and there’s Mr. Snow Malone’s place, that everybody goes to see: and there’s the fishing of Doyle’s river, – trout, eight, nine, maybe twelve, pounds’ weight; and there’s Mr. Reeve’s cottage – a Swiss cottage belike – at Kinmacreedy; but, to be sure, there must be an order for that!”

“I never take much trouble,” I said indolently. “Who have you got in the house at present?”

“There’s young Lord Keldrum, sir, and two more with him, for the fishing; and the next room to you here, there’s Father Dyke, from Inistioge, and he’s going, by the same token, to dine with the Lord to-day.”

“Don’t mention to his Lordship that I am here,” said I, hastily. “I desire to be quite unknown down here.” The waiter promised obedience, without vouchsafing any misgivings as to the possibility of his disclosing what he did not know.

To his question as to my dinner, I carelessly said, as if I were in a West-end club, “Never mind soup, – a little fish, – a cutlet and a partridge. Or order it yourself, – I am indifferent.” The waiter had scarcely left the room when I was startled by the sound of voices so close to me as to seem at my side. They came from a little wooden balcony to the adjoining room, which, by its pretentious bow-window, I recognized to be the state apartment of the inn, and now in the possession of Lord Keldrum and his party. They were talking away in that gay, rattling, discursive fashion very young men do amongst each other, and discussed fishing-flies, the neighboring gentlemen’s seats, and the landlady’s niece.

“By the way, Kel,” cried one, “it was in your visit to the bar that you met your priest, was n’t it?”

“Yes; I offered him a cigar, and we began to chat together, and so I asked him to dine with us to-day.”

“And he refused?”

“Yes; but he has since changed his mind, and sent a message to say he ‘ll be with us at eight”.

“I should like to see your father’s face, Kel, when he heard of your entertaining the Reverend Father Dyke at dinner.”

“Well, I suppose he would say it was carrying conciliation a little too far; but as the adage says, À la guerre– ”

At this juncture, another burst in amongst them, calling out, “You ‘d never guess who ‘s just arrived here, in strict incog., and having bribed Mike, the waiter, to silence. Burgoyne!”

“Not Jack Burgoyne?”

“Jack himself. I had the portrait so correctly drawn by the waiter, that there’s no mistaking him; the long hair, green complexion, sheepish look, all perfect. He came on a hack, a little cream-colored pad he got at Dycer’s, and fancies he’s quite unknown.”

“What can he be up to now?”

“I think I have it,” said his Lordship. “Courtenay has got two three-year-olds down here at his uncle’s, one of them under heavy engagements for the spring meetings. Master Jack has taken a run down to have a look at them.”

“By Jove, Kel, you ‘re right! he’s always wide awake, and that stupid leaden-eyed look he has, has done him good service in the world.”

“I say, old Oxley, shall we dash in and unearth him? Or shall we let him fancy that we know nothing of his being here at all?”

“What does Hammond say?”

“I’d say, leave him to himself,” replied a deep voice; “you can’t go and see him without asking him to dinner; and he ‘ll walk into us after, do what we will.”

“Not, surely, if we don’t play,” said Oxley.

“Would n’t he, though? Why, he ‘d screw a bet out of a bishop.”

“I ‘d do with him as Tomkinson did,” said his Lordship; “he had him down at his lodge in Scotland, and bet him fifty pounds that he could n’t pass a week without a wager. Jack booked the bet and won it, and Tomkinson franked the company.”

“What an artful villain my counterpart must be!” I said. I stared in the glass to see if I could discover the sheepish-ness they laid such stress on. I was pale, to be sure, and my hair a light brown, but so was Shelley’s; indeed, there was a wild, but soft expression in my eyes that resembled his, and I could recognize many things in our natures that seemed to correspond. It was the poetic dreaminess, the lofty abstractedness from all the petty cares of every-day life which vulgar people set down as simplicity; and thus, —

“The soaring thoughts that reached the stare,
Seemed ignorance to them.”

As I uttered the consolatory lines, I felt two hands firmly pressed over my eyes, while a friendly voice called out, “Found out, old fellow! run fairly to earth!” “Ask him if he knows you,” whispered another, but in a voice I could catch.

“Who am I, Jack?” cried the first speaker.

“Situated as I now am,” I replied, “I am unable to pronounce; but of one thing I am assured, – I am certain I am not called Jack.”

The slow and measured intonation of my voice seemed to electrify them, for my captor relinquished his hold and fell back, while the two others, after a few seconds of blank surprise, burst into a roar of laughter; a sentiment which the other could not refrain from, while he struggled to mutter some words of apology.

“Perhaps I can explain your mistake,” I said blandly; “I am supposed to be extremely like the Prince of Salms Hökinshauven – ”

“No, no!” burst in Lord Keldrum, whose voice I recognized, “we never saw the Prince. The blunder of the waiter led us into this embarrassment; we fancied you were – ”

“Mr. Burgoyne,” I chimed in.