CHAPTER X

MY GENTLEMAN ON THE ROAD AGAIN

Near a milestone, under the moonlight, crouched the figure of a woman,

huddled with her head against her knees, and careless hair falling to the

summer's dust. Evan came upon this sight within a few miles of

Fallowfield. At first he was rather startled, for he had inherited

superstitious emotions from his mother, and the road was lone, the moon

full. He went up to her and spoke a gentle word, which provoked no reply.

He ventured to put his hand on her shoulder, continuing softly to address

her. She was flesh and blood. Evan stooped his head to catch a whisper

from her mouth, but nothing save a heavier fall of the breath she took,

as of one painfully waking, was heard.

A misery beyond our own is a wholesome picture for youth, and though we

may not for the moment compare the deep with the lower deep, we, if we

have a heart for outer sorrows, can forget ourselves in it. Evan had just

been accusing the heavens of conspiracy to disgrace him. Those patient

heavens had listened, as is their wont. They had viewed and had not been

disordered by his mental frenzies. It is certainly hard that they do not

come down to us, and condescend to tell us what they mean, and be

dumb-foundered by the perspicuity of our arguments the argument, for

instance, that they have not fashioned us for the science of the shears,

and do yet impel us to wield them. Nevertheless, they to whom mortal life

has ceased to be a long matter perceive that our appeals for conviction

are answered, now and then very closely upon the call. When we have cast

off the scales of hope and fancy, and surrender our claims on mad chance,

it is given us to see that some plan is working out: that the heavens,

icy as they are to the pangs of our blood, have been throughout speaking

to our souls; and, according to the strength there existing, we learn to

comprehend them. But their language is an element of Time, whom primarily

we have to know.

Evan Harrington was young. He wished not to clothe the generation. What

was to the remainder of the exiled sons of Adam simply the brand of

expulsion from Paradise, was to him hell. In his agony, anything less

than an angel, soft-voiced in his path, would not have satisfied the poor

boy, and here was this wretched outcast, and instead of being relieved,

he was to act the reliever!

Striving to rouse the desolate creature, he shook her slightly. She now

raised her head with a slow, gradual motion, like that of a wax-work,

showing a white young face, tearless,-dreadfully drawn at the lips. After

gazing at him, she turned her head mechanically to her shoulder, as to

ask him why he touched her. He withdrew his hand, saying:

'Why are you here? Pardon me; I want, if possible, to help you.'

A light sprang in her eyes. She jumped from the stone, and ran forward a

step or two, with a gasp:

'Oh, my God! I want to go and drown myself.'

Evan lingered behind her till he saw her body sway, and in a fit of

trembling she half fell on his outstretched arm. He led her to the stone,

not knowing what on earth to do with her. There was no sign of a house

near; they were quite solitary; to all his questions she gave an

unintelligible moan. He had not the heart to leave her, so, taking a

sharp seat on a heap of flints, thus possibly furnishing future

occupation for one of his craftsmen, he waited, and amused himself by

marking out diagrams with his stick in the thick dust.

His thoughts were far away, when he heard, faintly uttered:

'Why do you stop here?'

'To help you.'

'Please don't. Let me be. I can't be helped.'

'My good creature,' said Evan, 'it 's quite impossible that I should

leave you in this state. Tell me where you were going when your illness

seized you?'

'I was going,' she commenced vacantly, 'to the sea--the water,' she

added, with a shivering lip.

The foolish youth asked her if she could be cold on such a night.

'No, I'm not cold,' she replied, drawing closer over her lap the ends of

a shawl which would in that period have been thought rather gaudy for her

station.

'You were going to Lymport?'

'Yes,--Lymport's nearest, I think.'

'And why were you out travelling at this hour?'

She dropped her head, and began rocking to right and left.

While they talked the noise of waggon-wheels was heard approaching. Evan

went into the middle of the road, and beheld a covered waggon, and a

fellow whom he advanced to meet, plodding a little to the rear of the

horses. He proved kindly. He was a farmer's man, he said, and was at that

moment employed in removing the furniture of the farmer's son, who had

failed as a corn-chandler in Lymport, to Hillford, which he expected to

reach about morn. He answered Evan's request that he would afford the

young woman conveyance as far as Fallowfield:

'Tak' her in? That I will.

'She won't hurt the harses,' he pursued, pointing his whip at the

vehicle: 'there's my mate, Gearge Stoakes, he's in there, snorin' his

turn. Can't you hear 'n asnorin' thraugh the wheels? I can; I've been

laughin'! He do snore that loud-Gearge do!'

Proceeding to inform Evan how George Stokes had snored in that

characteristic manner from boyhood, ever since he and George had slept in

a hayloft together; and how he, kept wakeful and driven to distraction by

George Stokes' nose, had been occasionally compelled, in sheer

self-defence, madly to start up and hold that pertinacious alarum in

tight compression between thumb and forefinger; and how George Stokes,

thus severely handled, had burst his hold with a tremendous snort, as big

as a bull, and had invariably uttered the exclamation, 'Hulloa!--same to

you, my lad!' and rolled over to snore as fresh as ever;--all this with

singular rustic comparisons, racy of the soil, and in raw Hampshire

dialect, the waggoner came to a halt opposite the stone, and, while Evan

strode to assist the girl, addressed himself to the great task of

arousing the sturdy sleeper and quieting his trumpet, heard by all ears

now that the accompaniment of the wheels was at an end.

George, violently awakened, complained that it was before his time, to

which he was true; and was for going off again with exalted contentment,

though his heels had been tugged, and were dangling some length out of

the machine; but his comrade, with a determined blow of the lungs, gave

another valiant pull, and George Stokes was on his legs, marvelling at

the world and man. Evan had less difficulty with the girl. She rose to

meet him, put up her arms for him to clasp her waist, whispering sharply

in an inward breath: 'What are you going to do with me?' and indifferent

to his verbal response, trustingly yielded her limbs to his guidance. He

could see blood on her bitten underlip; as, with the help of the

waggoner, he lifted her on the mattress, backed by a portly bundle, which

the sagacity of Mr. Stokes had selected for his couch.

The waggoner cracked his whip, laughing at George Stokes, who yawned and

settled into a composed ploughswing, without asking questions; apparently

resolved to finish his nap on his legs.

'Warn't he like that Myzepper chap, I see at the circus, bound athert

gray mare!' chuckled the waggoner. 'So he 'd 'a gone on, had ye 'a let

'n. No wulves waddn't wake Gearge till he 'd slept it out. Then he 'd

say, "marnin'!" to 'm. Are ye 'wake now, Gearge?'

The admirable sleeper preferred to be a quiet butt, and the waggoner

leisurely exhausted the fun that was to be had out of him; returning to

it with a persistency that evinced more concentration than variety in his

mind. At last Evan said: 'Your pace is rather slow. They'll be shut up in

Fallowfield. I 'll go on ahead. You'll find me at one of the inns-the

Green Dragon.'

In return for this speech, the waggoner favoured him with a stare,

followed by the exclamation:

'Oh, no! dang that!'

'Why, what's the matter?' quoth Evan.

'You en't goin' to be off, for to leave me and Gearge in the lurch there,

with that ther' young woman, in that ther' pickle!' returned the

waggoner.

Evan made an appeal to his reason, but finding that impregnable, he

pulled out his scanty purse to guarantee his sincerity with an offer of

pledgemoney. The waggoner waved it aside. He wanted no money, he said.

'Look heer,' he went on; 'if you're for a start, I tells ye plain, I

chucks that ther' young woman int' the road.'

Evan bade him not to be a brute.

'Nark and crop!' the waggoner doggedly ejaculated.

Very much surprised that a fellow who appeared sound at heart, should

threaten to behave so basely, Evan asked an explanation: upon which the

waggoner demanded to know what he had eyes for: and as this query failed

to enlighten the youth, he let him understand that he was a man of family

experience, and that it was easy to tell at a glance that the complaint

the young woman laboured under was one common to the daughters of Eve. He

added that, should an emergency arise, he, though a family man, would be

useless: that he always vacated the premises while those incidental

scenes were being enacted at home; and that for him and George Stokes to

be left alone with the young woman, why they would be of no more service

to her than a couple of babies newborn themselves. He, for his part, he

assured Evan, should take to his heels, and relinquish waggon, and

horses, and all; while George probably would stand and gape; and the end

of it would be, they would all be had up for murder. He diverged from the

alarming prospect, by a renewal of the foregoing alternative to the

gentleman who had constituted himself the young woman's protector. If he

parted company with them, they would immediately part company with the

young woman, whose condition was evident.

'Why, couldn't you tall that?' said the waggoner, as Evan, tingling at

the ears, remained silent.

'I know nothing of such things,' he answered, hastily, like one hurt.

I have to repeat the statement, that he was a youth, and a modest one. He

felt unaccountably, unreasonably, but horridly, ashamed. The thought of

his actual position swamped the sickening disgust at tailordom. Worse,

then, might happen to us in this extraordinary world! There was something

more abhorrent than sitting with one's legs crossed, publicly stitching,

and scoffed at! He called vehemently to the waggoner to whip the horses,

and hurry ahead into Fallowfield; but that worthy, whatever might be his

dire alarms, had a regular pace, that was conscious of no spur: the reply

of 'All right!' satisfied him at least; and Evan's chaste sighs for the

appearance of an assistant petticoat round a turn of the road, were

offered up duly, to the measure of the waggoner's steps.

Suddenly the waggoner came to a halt, and said 'Blest if that Gearge

bain't a snorin' on his pins!'

Evan lingered by him with some curiosity, while the waggoner thumped his

thigh to, 'Yes he be! no he bain't!' several times, in eager hesitation.

'It's a fellow calling from the downs,' said Evan.

'Ay, so!' responded the waggoner. 'Dang'd if I didn't think 'twere that

Gearge of our'n. Hark awhile.'

At a repetition of the call, the waggoner stopped his team. After a few

minutes, a man appeared panting on the bank above them, down which he ran

precipitately, knocked against Evan, apologized with the little breath

that remained to him, and then held his hand as to entreat a hearing.

Evan thought him half-mad; the waggoner was about to imagine him the

victim of a midnight assault. He undeceived them by requesting, in rather

flowery terms, conveyance on the road and rest for his limbs. It being

explained to him that the waggon was already occupied, he comforted

himself aloud with the reflection that it was something to be on the road

again for one who had been belated, lost, and wandering over the downs

for the last six hours.

'Walcome to git in, when young woman gits out,' said the waggoner. 'I'll

gi' ye my sleep on t' Hillford.'

'Thanks, worthy friend,' returned the new comer. 'The state of the case

is this--I'm happy to take from humankind whatsoever I can get. If this

gentleman will accept of my company, and my legs hold out, all will yet

be well.'

Though he did not wear a petticoat, Evan was not sorry to have him. Next

to the interposition of the Gods, we pray for human fellowship when we

are in a mess. So he mumbled politely, dropped with him a little to the

rear, and they all stepped out to the crack of the waggoner's whip.

'Rather a slow pace,' said Evan, feeling bound to converse.

'Six hours on the downs makes it extremely suitable to me,' rejoined the

stranger,

'You lost your way?'

'I did, sir. Yes; one does not court those desolate regions wittingly. I

am for life and society. The embraces of Diana do not agree with my

constitution. If classics there be who differ from me, I beg them to take

six hours on the downs alone with the moon, and the last prospect of

bread and cheese, and a chaste bed, seemingly utterly extinguished. I am

cured of my romance. Of course, when I say bread and cheese, I speak

figuratively. Food is implied.'

Evan stole a glance at his companion.

'Besides,' the other continued, with an inflexion of grandeur, 'for a man

accustomed to his hunters, it is, you will confess, unpleasant--I speak'

hypothetically--to be reduced to his legs to that extent that it strikes

him shrewdly he will run them into stumps.'

The stranger laughed.

The fair lady of the night illumined his face, like one who recognized a

subject. Evan thought he knew the voice. A curious struggle therein

between native facetiousness and an attempt at dignity, appeared to Evan

not unfamiliar; and the egregious failure of ambition and triumph of the

instinct, helped him to join, the stranger in his mirth.

'Jack Raikes?' he said: 'surely?'

'The man!' it was answered to him. 'But you? and near our old

school--Viscount Harrington? These marvels occur, you see--we meet again

by night.'

Evan, with little gratification at the meeting, fell into their former

comradeship; tickled by a recollection of his old schoolfellow's

India-rubber mind.

Mr. Raikes stood about a head under him. He had extremely mobile

features; thick, flexible eyebrows; a loose, voluble mouth; a ridiculous

figure on a dandified foot. He represented to you one who was rehearsing

a part he wished to act before the world, and was not aware that he took

the world into his confidence.

How he had come there his elastic tongue explained in tropes and puns and

lines of dramatic verse. His patrimony spent, he at once believed himself

an actor, and he was hissed off the stage of a provincial theatre.

'Ruined, the last ignominy endured, I fled from the gay vistas of the

Bench--for they live who would thither lead me! and determined, the day

before the yesterday--what think'st thou? why to go boldly, and offer

myself as Adlatus to blessed old Cudford! Yes! a little Latin is all that

remains to me, and I resolved, like the man I am, to turn, hic, hac, hoc,

into bread and cheese, and beer: Impute nought foreign to me, in the

matter of pride.'

'Usher in our old school--poor old Jack!' exclaimed Evan.

'Lieutenant in the Cudford Academy!' the latter rejoined. 'I walked the

distance from London. I had my interview with the respected principal. He

gave me of mutton nearest the bone, which, they say, is sweetest; and on

sweet things you should not regale in excess. Endymion watched the sheep

that bred that mutton! He gave me the thin beer of our boyhood, that I

might the more soberly state my mission. That beer, my friend, was brewed

by one who wished to form a study for pantomimic masks. He listened with

the gravity which is all his own to the recital of my career; he

pleasantly compared me to Phaethon, congratulated the river Thames at my

not setting it on fire in my rapid descent, and extended to me the three

fingers of affectionate farewell. "You an usher, a rearer of youth, Mr.

Raikes? Oh, no! Oh, no!" That was all I could get out of him. 'Gad! he

might have seen that I didn't joke with the mutton-bone. If I winced at

the beer it was imperceptible. Now a man who can do that is what I call a

man in earnest.'

'You've just come from Cudford?' said Evan.

'Short is the tale, though long the way, friend Harrington. From Bodley

is ten miles to Beckley. I walked them. From Beckley is fifteen miles to

Fallowfield. Them I was traversing, when, lo! near sweet eventide a fair

horsewoman riding with her groom at her horse's heels. "Lady," says I,

addressing her, as much out of the style of the needy as possible, "will

you condescend to direct me to Fallowfield?"--"Are you going to the

match?" says she. I answered boldly that I was. "Beckley's in," says she,

"and you'll be in time to see them out, if you cut across the downs

there." I lifted my hat--a desperate measure, for the brim won't bear

much--but honour to women though we perish. She bowed: I cut across the

downs. In fine, Harrington, old boy, I've been wandering among those

downs for the last seven or eight hours. I was on the point of turning my

back on the road for the twentieth time, I believe when I heard your

welcome vehicular music, and hailed you; and I ask you, isn't it luck for

a fellow who hasn't got a penny in his pocket, and is as hungry as five

hundred hunters, to drop on an old friend like this?'

Evan answered with the question:

'Where was it you said you met the young lady?'

'In the first place, O Amadis! I never said she was young. You're on the

scent, I see.'

Nursing the fresh image of his darling in his heart's recesses, Evan, as

they entered Fallowfield, laid the state of his purse before Jack, and

earned anew the epithet of Amadis, when it came to be told that the

occupant of the waggon was likewise one of its pensioners.

Sleep had long held its reign in Fallowfield. Nevertheless, Mr. Raikes,

though blind windows alone looked on him, and nought foreign was to be

imputed to him in the matter of pride, had become exceedingly solicitous

concerning his presentation to the inhabitants of that quiet little

country town; and while Evan and--the waggoner consulted the former with

regard to the chances of procuring beds and supper, the latter as to his

prospect of beer and a comfortable riddance of the feminine burden

weighing on them all--Mr. Raikes was engaged in persuading his hat to

assume something of the gentlemanly polish of its youth, and might have

been observed now and then furtively catching up a leg to be dusted. Ere

the wheels of the waggon stopped he had gained that ease of mind which

the knowledge that you have done all a man may do and circumstances

warrant, establishes. Capacities conscious of their limits may repose

even proudly when they reach them; and, if Mr. Raikes had not quite the

air of one come out of a bandbox, he at least proved to the discerning

intelligence that he knew what sort of manner befitted that happy

occasion, and was enabled by the pains he had taken to glance with a

challenge at the sign of the hostelry, under which they were now ranked,

and from which, though the hour was late, and Fallowfield a singularly

somnolent little town, there issued signs of life approaching to

festivity.