Temple is my dear friend, I replied.
And he would not be so if not of the right stuff! Good! That s a way of putting much in little. By Jove! a royal style.
And Harrys a royal fellow! said Temple.
We all drank to one another. The captains eyes scrutinized me speculatingly.
This boy might have been yours or mine, Greg, I heard him say in a faltering rough tone.
They forgot the presence of Temple and me, but spoke as if they thought they were whispering. The captain assured his brother that Squire Beltham had given him as much fair play as one who holds a balance. Squire Gregory doubted it, and sipped and kept his nose at his wineglass, crabbedly repeating his doubts of it. The captain then remarked, that doubting it, his conscience permitted him to use stratagems, though he, the captain, not doubting it, had no such permission.
I count I run away with her every night of my life, said Squire Gregory. Nothing comes of it but empty bottles.
Court her, serenade her, said the captain; blockade the port, lay siege to the citadel. Id give a year of service for your chances, Greg. Half a word from her, and you have your horses ready.
Shes past pochaises, Squire Gregory sighed.
Shes to be won by a bold stroke, brother Greg.
Oh, Lord, no! Shes past pochaises.
Humph! its come to be half-bottle, half-beauty, with your worship, Greg, I suspect.
No. I tell you, William, shes got her mind on that fellow. You cant pochay her.
After he jilted her for her sister? Wrong, Greg, wrong. You are muddled. She has a fright about matrimonya common thing at her age, I am told. Wheres the man?
In the Bench, of course. Whered you have him?
I, sir? If I knew my worst enemy to be there, Id send him six dozen of the best in my cellar.
Temple shot a walnut at me. I pretended to be meditating carelessly, and I had the heat and roar of a conflagration round my head.
Presently the captain said, Are you sure the mans in the Bench?
Cock, Squire Gregory replied.
He had money from his wife.
And he had the wheels to make it go. Here they whispered in earnest.
Oh, the Billings were as rich as the Belthams, said the captain, aloud.
Pretty nigh, William.
Thats our curse, Greg. Money settled on their male issue, and money in hand; by the Lord! weve always had the look of a pair of highwaymen lurking for purses, when it was the woman, the woman, penniless, naked, mean, destitute; nothing but the woman we wanted. And there was one apiece for us. Greg, old boy, when will the old county show such another couple of Beauties! Greg, sir, youre not half a man, or youd have carried her, with your opportunities. The fellows in the Bench, you say? How are you cocksure of that, Mr. Greg?
Company, was the answer; and the captain turned to Temple and me, apologizing profusely for talking over family matters with his brother after a separation of three years. I had guessed but hastily at the subject of their conversation until they mentioned the Billings, the family of my maternal grandmother. The name was like a tongue of fire shooting up in a cloud of smoke: I saw at once that the man in the Bench must be my father, though what the Bench was exactly, and where it was, I had no idea, and as I was left to imagination I became, as usual, childish in my notions, and brooded upon thoughts of the Man in the Iron Mask; things I dared not breathe to Temple, of whose manly sense I stood in awe when under these distracting influences.
Remember our feast in the combe? I sang across the table to him.
Never forget it! said he; and we repeated the tale of the goose at Rippengers school to our entertainers, making them laugh.
And next morning Richie ran off with a gipsy girl, said Temple; and I composed a narrative of my wanderings with Kiomi, much more amusing than the real one. The captain vowed he would like to have us both on board his ship, but that times were too bad for him to offer us a prospect of promotion. Spin round the decanters, said he; nows the hour for them to go like a humming-top, and each man lend a hand: whip hard, my lads. Its once in three years, hurrah! and the cause is a cruel woman. Toast her; but no name. Heres to the nameless Fair! For its not my intention to marry, says she, and, maam, Im a man of honour or Id catch you tight, my nut-brown maid, and clap you into a cage, fal-lal, like a squirrel; to trot the wheel of mat-trimony. Shame to the first man down!
That wont be I, said Temple.
Be me, sir, me, the captain corrected his grammar.
Pardon me, Captain Bulsted; the verb To be governs the nominative case in our climate, said Temple.
Then Im nominative hic I say, sir, Im in the tropics, Mr. Tem Mr. Tempus. Point of honour, not forget a mans name. Rippenger, your schoolmaster? Mr. Rippenger, youve knocked some knowledge into this young gentleman. Temple and I took counsel together hastily; we cried in a breath: Here s to Julia Rippenger, the prettiest, nicest girl living! and we drank to her.
Julia! the captain echoed us. I join your toast, gentlemen. Mr. Richmond, Mr. Tempus-Julia! By all thats holy, she floats a sinking ship! Julia consoles me for the fairest, cruellest woman alive. A rough sailor, Julia! at your feet.
The captain fell commendably forward. Squire Gregory had already dropped. Temple and I tried to meet, but did not accomplish it till next morning at breakfast. A couple of footmen carried us each upstairs in turn, as if they were removing furniture.
Out of this strange evening came my discovery of my father, and the captains winning of a wife.
CHAPTER X. AN EXPEDITION
I wondered audibly where the Bench was when Temple and I sat together alone at Squire Gregorys breakfast-table next morning, very thirsty for tea. He said it was a place in London, but did not add the sort of place, only that I should soon be coming to London with him; and I remarked, Shall I? and smiled at him, as if in a fit of careless affection. Then he talked runningly of the theatres and pantomimes and Londons charms.
The fear I had of this Bench made me passingly conscious of Temples delicacy in not repeating its name, though why I feared it there was nothing to tell me. I must have dreamed of it just before waking, and I burned for reasonable information concerning it. Temple respected my father too much to speak out the extent of his knowledge on the subject, so we drank our tea with the grandeur of London for our theme, where, Temple assured me, you never had a headache after a carouse overnight: a communication that led me to think the country a far less favourable place of abode for gentlemen. We quitted the house without seeing our host or the captain, and greatly admired by the footmen, the maids, and the grooms for having drunk their masters under the table, which it could not be doubted that we had done, as Temple modestly observed while we sauntered off the grounds under the eyes of the establishment. We had done it fairly, too, with none of those Jack the Giant-Killer tricks my grandfather accused us of.
The squire would not, and he could not, believe our story until he heard the confession from the mouth of the captain. After that he said we were men and heroes, and he tipped us both, much to Janet Ilchesters advantage, for the squire was a royal giver, and Temples money had already begun to take the same road as mine.
Temple, in fact, was falling desperately in love; for this reason he shrank from quitting Riversley. I perceived it as clearly as a thing seen through a windowpane. He was always meditating upon dogs, and what might be the price of this dog or that, and whether lapdogs were good travellers. The fashionable value of pugs filled him with a sort of despair. My goodness! he used an exclamation more suitable to women, forty or fifty pounds you say one costs, Richie?
Temple, in fact, was falling desperately in love; for this reason he shrank from quitting Riversley. I perceived it as clearly as a thing seen through a windowpane. He was always meditating upon dogs, and what might be the price of this dog or that, and whether lapdogs were good travellers. The fashionable value of pugs filled him with a sort of despair. My goodness! he used an exclamation more suitable to women, forty or fifty pounds you say one costs, Richie?
I pretended to estimate the probable cost of one. Yes, about that; but Ill buy you one, one day or other, Temple.
The dear little fellow coloured hot; he was too much in earnest to laugh at the absurdity of his being supposed to want a pug for himself, and walked round me, throwing himself into attitudes with shrugs and loud breathings. I dont dont think that I I care for nothing but Newfoundlands and mastiffs, said he. He went on shrugging and kicking up his heels.
Girls like pugs, I remarked.
I fancy they do, said Temple, with a snort of indifference.
Then I suggested, A pocket-knife for the hunting-field is a very good thing.
Do you think so? was Temples rejoinder, and I saw he was dreadfully afraid of my speaking the persons name for whom it would be such a very good thing.
You can get one for thirty shillings. Well get one when were in London. Theyre just as useful for women as they are for us, you know.
Why, of course they are, if they hunt, said Temple.
And we mustnt lose time, I drew him to the point I had at heart, for hunting ll soon be over. It s February, mind!
Oh, lots of time! Temple cried out, and on every occasion when I tried to make him understand that I was bursting to visit London, he kept evading me, simply because he hated saying good-bye to Janet Ilchester. His dulness of apprehension in not perceiving that I could not commit a breach of hospitality by begging him downright to start, struck me as extraordinary. And I was so acute. I saw every single idea in his head, every shift of, his mind, and how he half knew that he profited by my shunning to say flatly I desired to set out upon the discovery of the Bench. He took the benefit of my shamefacedness, for which I daily punished his. I really felt that I was justified in giving my irritability an airing by curious allusions to Janet; yet, though I made him wince, it was impossible to touch his conscience. He admitted to having repeatedly spoken of Londons charms, and Oh, yes! you and Ill go back together, Richie, and saying that satisfied him: he doubled our engagements with Janet that afternoon, and it was a riding party, a dancing-party, and a drawing of a pond for carp, and we over to Janet, and Janet over to us, until I grew so sick of her I was incapable of summoning a spark of jealousy in order the better to torture Temple.
Now, he was a quick-witted boy. Well, I one day heard Janet address my big dog, Ajax, in the style she usually employed to inform her hearers, and especially the proprietor, that she coveted a thing: Oh, you own dear precious pet darling beauty! if I might only feed you every day of my life I should be happy! I curtsey to him every time I see him. If I were his master, the men should all off hats, and the women all curtsey, to Emperor Ajax, my dog! my own! my great, dear irresistible love! Then she nodded at me, I would make them, though. And then at Temple, You see if I wouldnt.
Ajax was a source of pride to me. However, I heard Temple murmur, in a tone totally unlike himself, He would be a great protection to you; and I said to him, You know, Temple, I shall be going to London to-morrow or the next day, not later: I dont know when I shall be back. I wish you would dispose of the dog just as you like: get him a kind master or mistress, thats all.
I sacrificed my dog to bring Temple to his senses. I thought it would touch him to see how much I could sacrifice just to get an excuse for begging him to start. He did not even thank me. Ajax soon wore one of Janets collars, like two or three other of the Riversley dogs, and I had the satisfaction of hearing Temple accept my grandfathers invitation for a further fortnight. And, meanwhile, I was the one who was charged with going about looking lovelorn! I smothered my feelings and my reflections on the wisdom of people.
At last my aunt Dorothy found the means of setting me at liberty on the road to London. We had related to her how Captain Bulsted toasted Julia Rippenger, and we had both declared in joke that we were sure the captain wished to be introduced to her. My aunt reserved her ideas on the subject, but by-and-by she proposed to us to ride over to Julia, and engage her to come and stay at Riversley for some days. Kissing me, my aunt said, She was my Harrys friend when he was an outcast.
The words revived my affection for Julia. Strong in the sacred sense of gratitude, I turned on Temple, reproaching him with selfish forgetfulness of her good heart and pretty face. Without defending himself, as he might have done, he entreated me to postpone our journey for a day; he and Janet had some appointment. Here was given me a noble cause and matter I need not shrink from speaking of. I lashed Temple in my aunts presence with a rod of real eloquence that astonished her, and him, and myself too; and as he had a sense of guilt not quite explicable in his mind, he consented to bear what was in reality my burden; for Julia had distinguished me and not him with all the signs of affection, and of the two I had the more thoroughly forgotten her; I believe Temple was first in toasting her at Squire Gregorys table. There is nothing like a pent-up secret of the heart for accumulating powers of speech; I mean in youth. The mental distilling process sets in later, and then you have irony instead of eloquence. From brooding on my father, and not daring to mention his name lest I should hear evil of it, my thoughts were a proud family, proud of their origin, proud of their isolation,and not to be able to divine them was for the world to confess itself basely beneath their level. But, when they did pour out, they were tremendous, as Temple found. This oratorical display of mine gave me an ascendancy over him. He adored eloquence, not to say grandiloquence: he was the son of a barrister. Let s go and see her at once, Richie, he said of Julia. I m ready to be off as soon as you like; Im ready to do anything that will please you; which was untrue, but it was useless to tell him so. I sighed at my sad gift of penetration, and tossed the fresh example of it into the treasury of vanity.
Temple, said I, dissembling a little; I tell you candidly: you wont please me by doing anything disagreeable to you. A dog pulled by the collar is not much of a companion. I start for Julia to-morrow before daylight. If you like your bed best, stop there; and mind you amuse Janet for me duing my absence.
Im not going to let any one make comparisons between us, Temple muttered.
He dropped dozens of similar remarks, and sometimes talked downright flattery, I had so deeply impressed him.
We breakfasted by candle-light, and rode away on a frosty foggy morning, keeping our groom fifty yards to the rear, a laughable sight, with both his coat-pockets bulging, a couple of Riversley turnover pasties in one, and a bottle of champagne in the other, for our lunch on the road. Now and then, when near him, we galloped for the fun of seeing him nurse the bottle-pocket. He was generally invisible. Temple did not think it strange that we should be riding out in an unknown world with only a little ring, half a stones-throw clear around us, and blots of copse, and queer vanishing cottages, and hard grey meadows, fir-trees wonderfully magnified, and larches and birches rigged like fairy ships, all starting up to us as we passed, and melting instantly. One could have fancied the fir-trees black torches. And here the shoulder of a hill invited us to race up to the ridge: some way on we came to crossroads, careless of our luck in hitting the right one: yonder hung a village church in the air, and church-steeple piercing ever so high; and out of the heart of the mist leaped a brook, and to hear it at one moment, and then to have the sharp freezing silence in ones ear, was piercingly weird. It all tossed the mind in my head like hay on a pitchfork. I forgot the existence of everything but what I loved passionately,and that had no shape, was like a wind.