Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 2

“Even these chances, taken at the best, would scarcely keep a man alive,” said Davis.

“Nor would they; but we suspect he must have means of getting out at night and making a ‘raid’ over the country. We constantly hear of fowls carried off; cheese and fruit stolen. There he is now, creeping along the gallery. Listen! I have left some apples outside.”

With a gesture to enforce caution, Davis arose, and placed a percussion-cap on a pistol, a motion of his hand sufficing to show that the weapon was not loaded.

“Open the door gently,” said he; and the waiter, stealing over noiselessly, turned the handle. Scarcely had the door been drawn back, when Grog saw the figure of a man, and snapped off the pistol. At the same moment he sprang from the spot, and rushed out to the corridor. The stranger, to all seeming, was not even startled by the report, but was gravely occupied in examining his sleeve to see if he had been struck. He lifted up his head, and Davis, with a start, cried out, —

“What, Paul! – Paul Classon! Is this possible!”

“Davis – old fellow! – do I see you here?” exclaimed the other, in a deep and mellow voice, utterly devoid of irritation or even excitement.

“Come in, – come in here, Paul,” said Davis, taking him by the arm; and he led him within the room. “Little I suspected on whom I was playing this scurvy trick.”

“It was not loaded,” said the other, coolly.

“Of course not”

“I thought so,” said he, with an easy smile; “they ‘ve had so many devices to frighten me.”

“Come, Paul, old fellow, pour yourself out a tumbler of that red wine, while I cut you some of this ham; we ‘ll have plenty of time for talk afterwards.”

The stranger accepted the invitation, but without the slightest show of eagerness or haste. Nay, he unfolded his napkin leisurely, and fastened a corner in one buttonhole, as some old-fashioned epicures have a trick of doing. He held his glass, too, up to the light, to enjoy the rich color of the wine, and smacked his lips, as he tasted it, with the air of a connoisseur.

“A Burgundy, Davis, eh?” asked he, sipping again.

“I believe so. In truth, I know little about these wines.”

“Oh, yes, a ‘Pomard,’ and very good of its kind. Too loaded, of course, for the time of year, except for such palates as England rears.”

Davis had now covered his friend’s plate with ham and capon, and, at last, was pleased to see him begin his breakfast.

We are not about to impose upon our reader the burden of knowing more of Mr. Classon than is requisite for the interests of our story; but while he eats the first regular meal he has tasted for two months and more, let us say a word or so about him. He was a clergyman, whose life had been one continued history of mischances. Occasionally the sun of prosperity would seem disposed to shine genially on his head; but for the most part his lot was to walk with dark and lowering skies above him.

If he held any preferment, it was to quarrel with his rector, his dean, or his bishop; to be cited before commissions, tried by surrogates, pronounced contumacious, suspended, and Heaven knows what else. He was everlastingly in litigation with churchwardens and parish authorities, discovering rights of which he was defrauded, and privileges of which he was deprived. None like him to ferret out Acts of Edward or Henry, and obsolete bequests of long-buried founders of this, that, or t’other, of which the present guardians were little better than pickpockets. Adverse decisions and penalties pressing on him, he grew libellous, he spoke, wrote, and published all manner of defamatory things, accused every one of peculation, fraud, and falsehood, and, as the spirit of attack strengthened in him by exercise, menaced this man with prosecution, and that with open exposure. Trials by law, and costs accumulated against him, and he was only out of jail here, to enter it again there. From the Courts “above” he soon descended to those “below;” he became dissipated and dissolute, his hireling pen scrupled at nothing, and he assailed anything or any one, to order. Magistrates “had him up” as the author of threatening letters or begging epistles. To-day he was the mock secretary of an imaginary charity; tomorrow he ‘d appear as a distressed missionary going out to some island in the Pacific. He was eternally before the world, until the paragraph that spoke of him grew to be headed by the words, “The Reverend Paul Classon again!” or, more briefly, “Paul Classon’s last!” His pen, all this while, was his sole subsistence; and what a bold sweep it took! – impeachment of Ministers, accusation of theft, forgery, intimation of even worse crimes against the highest names in the realm, startling announcements of statesmen bribed, ambassadors corrupted, pasquinades against bishops and judges, libellous stories of people in private life, prize fights, prophetic almanacs, mock missionary journals, stanzas to celebrate quack remedies, – even street ballads were amongst his literary efforts; while, personally, he presided at low singing-establishments, and was the president of innumerable societies in localities only known to the police. It was difficult to take up a newspaper without finding him either reported drunk and disorderly in the police-sheet, obstructing the thoroughfare by a crowd assembled to hear him, having refused to pay for his dinner or his bed, assaulted the landlady, or, crime of crimes, used intemperate language to “G 493.” At last they got actually tired of trying him for begging, and imprisoning him for battery; the law was wearied out; but the world also had its patience exhausted, and Paul saw that he must conquer a new hemisphere. He came abroad.

What a changeful life was it now that he led, – at one time a tutor, at another a commissionaire for an hotel, a railway porter, a travelling servant, a police spy, the doorkeeper of a circus company, editor of an English journal, veterinary, language master, agent for patent medicines, picture-dealer, and companion to a nervous invalid, which, as Paul said, meant a furious maniac. There is no telling what he went through of debt and difficulty, till the police actually preferred passing him quietly over the frontier to following up with penalty so incurable an offender. In this way had he wandered about Europe for years, the terror of legations, the pestilence of charitable committees. Contributions to enable the Rev. Paul Classon to redeem his clothes, his watch, his divinity library, to send him to England, to the Andes, to Africa, figured everywhere. I dare not say how often he had been rescued out of the lowest pit of despondency, or snatched like a brand from the burning; in fact, he lived in a pit, and was always on fire.

“I am delighted,” said Davis, as he replenished his friend’s plate, – “I am delighted to see that you have the same good, hearty appetite as of old, Paul.”

“Ay, Kit,” said he, with a gentle sigh, “the appetite has been more faithful than the dinner; on the same principle, perhaps, that the last people who desert us are our creditors!”

“I suspect you ‘ve had rather a hard time of it,” said Davis, compassionately.

“Well, not much to complain of, – not anything that one would call hardships,” said Classon, as he pushed his plate from him and proceeded to light a cigar; “we ‘re all stragglers, Kit, that’s the fact of it.”

“I suppose it is; but it ain’t very disagreeable to be a straggler with ten thousand a year.”

“If the having and enjoying were always centred in the same individual,” said Classon, slowly, “what you say would be unanswerable; but it’s not so, Kit. No, no; the fellows who really enjoy life never have anything. They are, so to say, guests on a visit to this earth, come to pass a few months pleasantly, to put up anywhere, and be content with everything.” Grog shook his head dissentingly, and the other went on, “Who knows the truth of what I am saying better than either of us? How many broad acres did your father or mine bequeath us? What debentures, railroad shares, mining scrip, or mortgages? And yet, Kit, if we come to make up the score of pleasant days and glorious nights, do you fancy that any noble lord of them all would dispute the palm with us? Oh,” said he, rapturously, “give me the unearned enjoyments of life, – pleasures that have never cost me a thought to provide, nor a sixpence to pay for! Pass the wine, Kit, – that bottle is better than the other;” and be smacked his lips, while his eyes closed in a sort of dreamy rapture.

“I ‘d like to hear something of your life, Paul,” said Davis. “I often saw your name in the ‘Times’ and the ‘Post,’ but I ‘d like to have your own account of it.”

“My dear Kit, I ‘ve had fifty lives. It’s the man you should understand, – the fellow that is here;” and he slapped his broad chest as he spoke. “As for mere adventures, what are they? Squalls that never interfere with the voyage, – not even worth entering in the ship’s log.”

“Where’s your wife, Paul?” asked Davis, abruptly, for he was half impatient under the aphorizing tone of his companion.

“When last I heard of her,” said Classon, slowly, as he eyed his glass to the light, “she was at Chicago, – if that be the right prosody of it, – lecturing on ‘Woman’s Rights.’ Nobody knew the subject better than Fanny.”

“I heard she was a very clever woman,” said Davis.

“Very clever,” said Classon; “discursive; not always what the French call ‘consequent,’ but, certainly, clever, and a sweet poetess.” There was a racy twinkle in that reverend eye as he said the last words, so full of malicious drollery that Davis could not help remarking it; but all Classon gave for explanation was, “This to her health and happiness!” and he drained off a bumper. “And yours, Kit, – what of her?” asked he.

“Dead these many years. Do you remember her?”

“Of course I do. I wrote the article on her first appearance at the Surrey. What a handsome creature she was then! It was I predicted her great success; it was I that saved her from light comedy parts, and told her to play Lady Teazle!”

“I ‘ll show you her born image to-morrow, – her daughter,” said Davis, with a strange choking sensation that made him cough; “she’s taller than her mother, – more style also.”

“Very difficult, that, – very difficult, indeed,” said Classon, gravely. “There was a native elegance about her I never saw equalled; and then her walk, the carriage of the head, the least gesture, had all a certain grace that was fascination.”

“Wait till you see Lizzy,” said Davis, proudly; “you ‘ll see these all revived.”

“Do you destine her for the boards, Kit?” asked Classon, carelessly.

“For the stage? No, of course not,” replied Davis, rudely.

“And yet these are exactly the requirements would fetch a high price just now. Beauty is not a rare gift in England; nor are form and symmetry; but, except in the highly born, there is a lamentable deficiency in that easy gracefulness of manner, that blended dignity and softness, that form the chief charm of woman. If she be what you say, Kit, – if she be, in short, her mother’s daughter, – it is a downright insanity not to bring her out.”

“I ‘ll not hear of it! That girl has cost me very little short of ten thousand pounds, – ay, ten thousand pounds, – schooling, masters, and the rest of it. She ‘s no fool, so I take it; it ain’t thrown away! As regards beauty, I’ll stake fifteen to ten, in hundreds, that, taking your stand at the foot of St. James’s Street on a drawing-room day, you don’t see her equal. I’m ready to put down the money to-morrow, and that’s giving three to two against the field! And is that the girl I ‘m to throw away on the Haymarket? She’s a Derby filly, I tell you, Paul, and will be first favorite one of these days.”

“Faustum sit augurium!” said Classon, as he raised his glass in a theatrical manner, and then drained it off. “Still, if I be rightly informed, the stage is often the antechamber to the peerage. The attractions that dazzle thousands form the centre of fascination for some one.”

“She may find her way to a coronet without that,” said Davis, rudely.

“Ah, indeed!” said Paul, with a slight elevation of the eyebrow; but though his tone invited a confidence, the other made no further advance’s.

“And now for yourself, Classon, what have you been at lately?” said Davis, wishing to change the subject.

“Literature and the arts. I have been contributing to a London weekly, as Crimean correspondent, with occasional letters from the gold diggings. I have been painting portraits for a florin the head, till I have exhausted all the celebrities of the three villages near us. My editor has, I believe, run away, however, and supplies have ceased for some time back.”

“And what are your plans now?”

“I have some thoughts of going back to divinity. These newly invented water-cure establishments are daily developing grander proportions; some have got German bands, some donkeys, some pleasure-boats, others rely upon lending libraries and laboratories; but the latest dodge is a chaplain.”

“But won’t they know you, Paul? Have not the newspapers ‘blown you’?”

“Ah, Davis, my dear friend,” said he, with a benevolent smile, “it’s far easier to live down a bad reputation than to live up to a good one. I ‘d only ask a week – one week’s domestication with the company of these places – to show I was a martyred saint. I have, so to say, a perennial fount of goodness in my nature that has never failed me.”

“I remember it at school,” said Davis, dryly.