A Day's Ride: A Life's Romance

“It is a letter of introduction, sir,” said I, still more haughtily.

“And what if it be? Won’t that keep? Who is it to introduce?”

“The humble individual before you, Captain Rogers.”

“So, that’s it!” said he, slowly. “Well, read it out for me; for, to tell you the truth, there’s no harder navigation to me than one of Joe’s scrawls.”

“I believe I can master it,” said I, opening and reading what originally had been composed and drawn up by myself. When I came to “Algernon Sydney Potts, a man so completely after your own heart,” he drew his cigar from his mouth, and, laying his hand on my shoulder, turned me slowly around till the light fell full upon me.

“No, Joseph,” said he, deliberately, “not a bit of it, my boy. This ain’t my sort of chap at all!”

I almost choked with anger, but somehow there was such an apparent earnestness in the man, and such a total absence of all wish to offend, that I read on to the end.

“Well,” said he, as I concluded, “he used n’t to be so wordy as that. I wonder what came over him. Mayhap he was n’t well.”

What a comment on a style that might have adorned the Correct Letter Writer!

“He was, on the contrary, in the enjoyment of perfect health, sir,” said I, tartly.

“All I can pick out of it is, I ain’t to offer you any money; and as there is n’t any direction easier to follow, nor pleasanter to obey, here’s my hand!” And he wrung mine with a grip that would have flattened a chain cable.

“What’s your line, here? You ain’t sodgering, are you?”

“No; I ‘m travelling, for pleasure, for information, for pastime, as one might say.”

“In the general do-nothing and careless line of business? That ain’t mine. No, by jingo! I don’t eat my fish without matching, ay, and salting them too, I ain’t ashamed to say. I ‘m captain, supercargo, and pilot of my own craft; take every lunar that is taken aboard. I ‘ve writ every line that ever is writ in the log-book, and I vaccinated every man and boy aboard for the natural small-pox with these fingers and this tool that you see here!” And he produced an old and very rusty instrument of veterinary surgery from his vest-pocket, where it lay with copper money, tobacco quids, and lucifer matches.

I quickly remembered the character for inordinate boast-fulness his brother had given me, and of which he thus, without any provocation on my part, afforded me a slight specimen. Now, perhaps, at this stage of my narrative, I might never have alluded to him at all, if it were not for the opportunity it gives me of recording how nobly and how resolutely I resisted what may be called the most trying temptation of human nature. An inveterate dram-drinker has been known to turn away from the proffered glass; an incurable gambler has been seen to decline the invitation to “cut in;” dignitaries of the church have begged off being made bishops; but is there any mention in history of an anecdote-monger suffering himself to be patiently vanquished, and retiring from the field without firing off at least an “incident that occurred to himself”? If ever a man was sorely tried, I was. Here was this coarsely minded vulgar dog, with nothing pictorial or imaginative in his nature, heaping story upon story of his own feats and achievements, in which not one solitary situation ever suggested an interest or awakened an anxiety; and I, who could have shot my tigers, crippled my leopards, hamstrung my lionesses, rescued men from drowning, and women from fire, – with little life touches to thrill the heart and force tears from the eyes of a stock-broker, – I, I say, had to stand there and listen in silence! Watching a creature banging away at a target that he never hit, with an old flint musket, while you held in your hand a short Enfield that would have driven the ball through the bull’s eye, is nothing to this; and to tell the truth, it nearly choked me. Twice I had to cough down the words, “Now let me mention a personal fact.” But I did succeed, and I am proud to say I only grew very red in the face, and felt that singing noise in the ears and general state of muddle that forebodes a fit. But I rallied, and said in a voice, slow from the dignity of a self-conquest, —

“Can you take me as a passenger to Constantinople?”

“To Constantinople? Ay, to the Persian Gulf, to Point de Galle, to Cochin China, to Ross River; don’t think to puzzle me with navigation, my lad.”

“Are there many other passengers?”

“I could have five hundred, if I ‘d take ‘em! Put Bob Rogers on a placard, and see what’ll happen. If I said, ‘I ‘m a-going to sea on a plank to-morrow,’ there’s men would rather come along with me than go in the 'Queen’ or the ‘Hannibal.’ I don’t say they ‘re right, mind ye; but I won’t say they’s wrong, neither.”

“Oh, why did n’t I meet this wretch when I was a child? Why didn’t my father find a Helot like this, to tell lies before me, and frighten me with their horrid ugliness?” This was the thought that flashed through me as I listened. I felt, besides, that such stupid, purposeless inventions corrupted and blunted the taste for graceful narrative, just in the same way that an undeserving recipient of charity offends the pleasure of real benevolence.

“May I ask, Captain Rogers, what is the fare?” said I, with a bland courtesy.

“That depends upon the man, sir. If you was Ramsam Can-tanker-abad, I’d say five hundred gold pagodas. If you was a Cockney stripling, with a fresh-water face, and a spunyarn whisker, I ‘d call it a matter of seven or eight pound.”

“And you sail at eight?”

“To the minute. When Bob Rogers says eight o’clock, the first turn of the paddles will be the first stroke of the hour.”

“Then book me, pray, for a berth; and, for surety’s sake, I’ll go aboard to-night!”

“Meet me, then, here, at ten o’clock, and I ‘ll take you off in my gig, an honor to be proud on, my lad; but as Joe’s friend, I’ll do it.”

I bowed my acknowledgments and went off, neither delighted with my new acquaintance, nor myself for the patience I had shown him. After all, I had secured an early passage, and was thus able to show Kate Herbert that I was not going to let the grass grow under my feet this time, and that she might reckon on my zeal to serve her in future. As I retraced my road to the cottage, I forgot all about Captain Rogers, and only thought of Kate, and the interests that were hers. It was next to a certainty that her father was yet alive; but how to find him in a strange land, with a feigned name, and most probably with every aid and appliance to complete his disguisement! It was, doubtless, a noble enterprise to devote oneself for such as she was, but not very hopeful withal; and then I went over various plans for my future guidance: what I should do if I fell sick? what if my money failed me? what if I were waylaid by Arabs, or carried away to some fearful region in the mountains, and made to feed a pet alligator or a domestic boa-constrictor? I hoped sincerely that I was overestimating my possible perils, but it was wise to give a large margin to the unknown; and so I did not curb-myself in the least.

As I entered the grounds, the night was falling, and I could see that the lamps were already lighted in the drawing-room. What surprised me, however, was to see a very smart groom, well mounted, and leading another horse up and down before the door. There was, evidently, a visitor within, and I felt indisposed to enter till he had gone away. My curiosity, however, prompted me to ask the groom the name of his master, and he replied, “The Honorable Captain Buller.”

The very essence of all jealousy is that it is unreasoning. It is well known that husbands – that much-believing and much-belied class – always suspect every one but the right man; and now, without the faintest clew to a suspicion, I grew actually sick with jealousy!

Nor was it altogether blamable in me, for as I looked through the uncurtained window, I could see the Captain, a fine-looking, rather tigerish sort of fellow, standing with his back to the fireplace, while he talked to Miss Herbert, who sat some distance off at a work-table. There was in his air that amount of jaunty ease and self-possession that said, “I ‘m at home here; in this fortress I hold the chief command.” There was about him, too, the tone of an assumed superiority, which, when displayed by a man towards a woman, takes the most offensive of all possible aspects.

As he talked, he moved at last towards a window, and, opening it, held out his hand to feel if it were raining.

“I hope,” cried he, “you’ll not send me back with a refusal; her Ladyship counts upon you as the chief ornament of her ball.”

“We never do go to balls, sir,” was the dry response.

“But make this occasion the exception. If you only knew how lamentably we are off for pretty people, you ‘d pity us. Such garrison wives and daughters are unknown to the oldest inhabitant of the island. Surely Mrs. Keats will be quite well by Wednesday, and she ‘ll not be so cruel as to deny you to us for this once.”

“I can but repeat my excuses, – I never go out.”

“If you say so, I think I’ll abandon all share in the enterprise. It was a point of honor with me to persuade you; in fact, I pledged myself to succeed, and if you really persist in a refusal, I ‘II just pitch all these notes in the fire, and go off yachting till the whole thing is over.” And with this he drew forth a mass of notes from his sabretache, and proceeded to con over the addresses: “‘Mrs. Hilyard,’ ‘Mr. Barnes,’ 'Mr. Clintosh,’ ‘Lady Bladgen.’ Oh, Lady Blagden! Why, it would be worth while coming only to see her and Sir John; and here are the Crosbys too; and what have we here! Oh! this is a note from Grey. You don’t know my brother Grey, – he ‘d amuse you immensely. Just listen to this, by way of a letter of introduction: —

“‘Dear George, – Cherish the cove that will hand you this note as the most sublime snob I have ever met in all my home and foreign experiences. In a large garrison like yours, you can have no difficulty in finding fellows to give him a field-day. I commit him, therefore, to your worthy keeping, to dine him, draw him forth, and pitch him out of the window when you’ve done with him. No harm if it is from the topmost story of the highest barrack in Malta. His name is Potts, – seriously and truthfully Potts. Birth, parentage, and belongings all unknown to

“‘Yours ever,’

“‘Grey Buller.’”

“You are unfortunate, sir, in confiding your correspondence to me,” said Kate, rising from her seat, “for that gentleman is a friend – a sincere and valued friend – of my own, and you could scarcely have found a more certain way to offend me than to speak of him slightingly.”

“You can’t mean that you know him – ever met him?”

“I know him and respect him, and I will not listen to one word to his disparagement. Nay, more, sir, I will feel myself at liberty, if I think it fitting, to tell Mr. Potts the honorable mode in which your brother has discharged the task of an introduction, its good faith, and gentlemanlike feeling.”

“Pray, let us have him at the mess first. Don’t spoil our sport till we have at least one evening out of him.”

But she did not wait for him to finish his speech, and left the room.

It is but fair to own he took his reverses with great coolness; he tightened his sword-belt, set his cap on his head before the glass, stroked down his moustache, and then, lighting a cigar, swaggered off to the door with the lounging swing of his order.

As for myself, I hastened back to the town, and with such speed that I traversed the mile in something like thirteen minutes. I had no very clear or collected plan of action, but I resolved to ask Captain Rogers to be my friend, and see me through this conjuncture. He had just dined as I entered the coffee-room, and consented to have his brandy-and-water removed to my bedroom while I opened my business with him.

I will not, at this eleventh hour of revelations, inflict upon my reader the details, but simply be satisfied to state that I found the skipper far more practical than I looked for. He evidently, besides, had a taste for these sort of adventures, and prided himself on his conduct of them. “Go back now, and eat your dinner comfortably with your friends; leave everything to me, and I promise you one thing, – the ‘Cyclops’ shall not get full steam up till we have settled this small transaction.”

CHAPTER XLVII. MY DUELLING AMBITION AGAIN DISAPPOINTED

Though I was a few minutes late for dinner, Miss Herbert did not chide me for delay. She was charming in her reception of me; nor was the fascination diminished to me by feeling with what generous warmth she had defended and upheld me.

There is a marvellous charm in the being defended by one you love, and of whose kind feeling towards you you had never dared to assure yourself till the very moment that confirmed it. I don’t know if I ever felt in such spirits in my life. Not that I was gay or light-hearted so much as happy, – happy in the sense of a self-esteem I had not known till then. And what a spirit of cordial familiarity was there now between us! She spoke to me of her daily life, its habits and even of its trials; not complain-ingly nor fretfully, – far from it, – but in a way to imply that these were the burdens meted out to all, and that none should arrogantly imagine he was to escape the lot of his fellows. And then we talked of the Croftons, of whom she was curious to hear details, – their ages, appearance, manner, and so on; lastly, how I came to know them, and thus imperceptibly led me to tell of myself and of my story. I am sure that we each of us had enough of care upon our hearts, and yet none would have ever guessed it to have seen how joyously and merrily we laughed over some of the incidents of my checkered career. She bantered me, too, on the feeble and wayward impulses by which I had suffered myself to be moved, and gravely asked me, had I accomplished any single one of all the objects I had set before my mind in starting.