CHAPTER X. A RIDE TO NEUWIED
Long before Lizzy had composed herself to sleep—for her heart was torn by a first sorrow, and she lay restless and fevered—her father, mounted on a post-horse, was riding away towards the Rhine. He had desired that the reply to his telegraphic message should be addressed to him at the post-office of Neuwied, and thither he was now bent. It is a strange thing, that when the affections of men of this stamp are deeply moved,—when their sensibilities, long dulled and hardened by the rubs of life, are once evoked,—the feelings excited are less those of gentleness and tenderness than an almost savage desire for some personal conflict. Urging his horse to full speed, Davis spared neither whip nor spur. Alone upon that solitary road, he asked himself aloud if he were less alone in the broad, bleak world? “Is not the 'field' against me wherever I go? I never heard of the fellow that had not some 'moorings'—some anchorage—except myself.” But a brief hour ago and there was one who loved him with all her heart,—who saw, or fancied she saw, a rich mine of generous qualities in his rough manners and blunt address,—who pictured to her mind what such a nature might have been under happier circumstances and with better culture. “And now,” cried he, aloud,—“now she knows me for what I am, how will she bear this? Will she sink under it, will it crush her, or has she enough of my own blood in her veins to meet it courageously? Oh! if she only knew the world as I do,—what a mean coward it is, how it bullies the weak and truckles to the strong, how it frowns down the timid and simpers to the sturdy! Every man—ay, and every woman—can sell his life dearly; and strange it is, one only learns the value of this secret too late. Let a fellow start with it, and see what it does for him. I went at them single-handed; I went down all alone into the ring, and have they beaten me? I had no honorable or right honorable friends to pick me out of a scrape. It would be hard to find three men, with good hats on them, would bail me to the amount of ten pounds; and here I am to-day just as ready to face them all as ever.”
What canting nonsense do we occasionally read in certain quarters to disparage mere personal courage,—“mere personal courage”! We are reminded that the ignoble quality is held in common with the bull-dog, and that in this essential he is our master; we are reminded that it is a low and vulgar attribute that neither elevates nor enlightens, that the meanest creatures are often gifted with it, and the noblest natures void of it. To all this we give a loud and firm denial; and we affirm as steadfastly, that without it there is neither truth nor manliness. The self-reliance that makes a man maintain his word, be faithful to his friendships, and honorable in his dealings, has no root in a heart that shakes with craven fear. The life of a coward is the voyage of a ship with a leak,—eternal contrivance, never-ceasing emergency. All thoughts dashed with a perpetual fear of death, what room is there for one generous emotion, one great or high-hearted ambition?
What a quality must that be, I would ask, that gives even to such a nature as this man's a sort of rugged dignity? Yes, with all his failings and short-comings, and I am not going to hide one of them, his personal courage lifted him out of that category of contempt to which his life assigned him. How well the world understands such men to be the feræ naturæ of humanity! It may shun, deprecate, disparage, but it never despises them. If then of such value be a gift that makes even the bad appear tolerable, there is this evil in the quality, that it disposes men like Davis to be ever on the attack. Their whole policy of life is aggressive.
It was about eight o'clock, on a mellow autumnal morning, as Grog reached Neuwied, and rode down the main street, already becoming thronged with the peasantry for the market: Guiding his horse carefully through the booths of flaunting wares, gay stalls of rural finery, and stands of fruit, he reached the little inn where he meant to breakfast.
The post was not to open for an hour, so that he ordered his meal to be at once got ready, and looked also to the comfort of his beast, somewhat blown by a long stage. His breakfast had been laid in the public room, in which two travellers were seated, whose appearance, even before he heard them speak, proclaimed them to be English. They were both young, fresh-looking, and well favored; that stamp of half-modesty, half-boldness, so essentially British, was on them, and, notwithstanding the entrance of a stranger, they talked away in their native language with all the fearless security your genuine John Bull feels that no confounded foreigner can understand him. It is but fair to admit that Grog's beard and moustaches, his frogged and braided grass-green coat, and his blue spectacles made him resemble anything on earth rather than a subject of Queen Victoria.
In the mere glance Grog bestowed upon them as he passed, he saw the class to which they pertained,—young Oxford or Cambridge men, “out” for their vacation,—an order for which he ever entertained a supreme contempt. He despised their mock shrewdness, their assumed craft, and that affectation of being “fast men,” which in reality never soared above running up a bill at the pastrycook's, thrashing a townsman, and giving a stunning wine-party at their rooms. To what benefit could such miniature vices be turned? It was only “punting” with the Evil One, and Grog thought so and avoided them.
Deep in the “mysterious gutturals” of the “Cologne Gazette,” or busily discussing his carbonadoed beefsteak, Davis gave no heed to the bald, disjointed chat of his neighbors; broken phrases reached him at intervals about proctors and the “little go,” the stroke oar of Brazennose, or some new celebrity of the ballet, when suddenly the name of Annesley Beecher startled him. He now listened attentively, and heard one of them relating to the other that while waiting for his arrival at Aix la-Chapelle, he had devoted himself to watching Beecher and “the stunning girl” that was with him. It appeared from what he said that all Aix was wildly excited by curiosity on her account. That she was neither wife, sister, nor mistress, none disputed. Who was she, then? or what could be the explanation of that mysterious companionship? “You should have seen her at the rooms,” continued the narrator; “she used to make her appearance about eleven—rarely before—dressed with a magnificence that threw all the little German royalties into the shade,—such lace and ornaments! They said, of course, it was all false; I can only tell you that old Lady Bamouth got beside her one night just to examine her scarf, and she proclaimed it real Brussels, and worth I can't say how much; and for the recovery of an opal that fell out of her bracelet one night Beecher gave six hundred francs next morning.”
“Then it was the money was false,” broke in the other; “Beecher is ruined, he hasn't sixpence,—at least I've always heard him mentioned as a fellow regularly cleaned out years ago.”
“He was before my day,” resumed the first; “but I heard the same story you did. But what's the meaning of calling a fellow ruined that can go about the world stopping at first-rate hotels, having carriages, horses, opera-boxes? Why, the waiter at Aix told me that he paid above five hundred florins for flowers. This girl, whoever she was, was wild about moss-roses and pink hyacinths, and they fetched them from Rotterdam for her. Pretty well that for a ruined man!”
“Perhaps it was she herself had the money,” suggested the other, half carelessly.
“That's possible, too; I know that whenever she came down to the wells and took a glass of the waters, she always gave a gold piece to the girl that served her.”
“Then she was not a lady by birth; that trait is quite sufficient to decide the point.”
Davis started as if he had been stung; here, from the lips of these raw youths, was he to receive a lesson in life, and be told that all the cost and splendor by which he purposed to smooth over the difficult approaches to society were fatal blunders and no more,—that the very extravagance so imposing in one of acknowledged station becomes “suspect” in those of dubious rank. Like all men of quick resentments, he soon turned the blame from himself to others. It was Lizzy's fault. What right had she to draw upon herself all the censorious tongues of a watering-place? Why should she have attracted this foolish notoriety? After all, she was new to life and the world, and might be pardoned; but Beecher,—it was just the one solitary thing he did know,—Beecher ought to have warned her against this peril; he ought to have guarded against it himself. Why should such a girl be exposed to the insolent comments of fellows like these? and he measured them deliberately, and thought over in his mind how little trouble it would cost him to put two families into mourning,—mayhap, to throw a life-long misery into some happy home, and change the whole destinies of many he had never seen,—never should see! There was, however, this difficulty, that in doing so he drew a greater publicity upon her,—all whose interests required secrecy and caution. “'Till she have the right to another name than mine, she must not be the talk of newspapers,” said he to himself; and, like many a prudent reflection, it had its sting of pain.
These meditations were rudely cut short by the sound of his own name. It was the elder of the two young men who was discussing the duel at Brussels, and detailing, with all the influence of his superior experience, the various reasons “why no man was called upon to meet such a fellow as Davis.” “I talked it over with Stan worth and Ellis, and they both agreed with me.”
“But what is to be done?” asked the younger.
“You hand him over to the police, or you thrash him right well with a horsewhip, pay five pounds penalty for the assault, and there's an end on't.”
“And is 'Grog' as they call him, the man to put up with that mode of treatment?”
“What can he do? Notoriety must ruin him. The moment it gets abroad that a wolf has been seen near a village, all turn out for the pursuit.”
Had he who uttered this sentiment only cast his eyes towards the stranger at the table in the corner, he would have seen, by the expression of the features, that his simile was not a bad one. Davis shook with passion, and his self-control, to sit still and listen, was almost like a fit.
“All the more ungenerous, then, would be the conduct,” said the younger, “to resent a personal wrong by calling in others to your aid.”
“Don't you see, George,” broke in the other, “that men have their beasts of prey like other animals, and agree to hunt them down, out of common security, for the mischief he causes, and the misery he spreads through the world? One of these fellows in his lair is worse than any tiger that ever crouched in a jungle. And as to dealing with him, as Ellis says, do you ever talk of giving a tiger fair play,—do you make a duel of it, with equal weapons; or do you just shoot him down when you can and how you can?”
Davis arose and drew himself up, and there was a moment of irresolution in his mind, of which, could the two travellers-have read the secret, they would almost as soon have smoked their cigars in the den of a wild beast. And yet there they sat, puffing indolently away the blue cloud, scarcely deigning a passing glance at Grog, as he proceeded to leave the room.
Anatomists assure us that if we but knew the delicate tissues by which the machinery of our life is carried on, how slight the fibres, how complex the functions on which vitality depends, we should not have courage to move, or even speak, lest we should destroy an organization so delicate and sensitive. In like manner, did we but know in life the perils over which we daily pass, the charged mines over which we walk, the volcanoes that are actually throbbing beneath our feet, what terrors would it give to mere existence! It was on the turn of a straw how Davis decided,—a word the more, a look from one of them, a laugh, might have cost a life. With a long-drawn breath, the sigh of a pent-up emotion, Grog found himself in the open air; there was a vague feeling in his mind of having escaped a peril, but what or where or how he could n't remember.
He sat down in the little porch under the clustering vines; the picturesque street, with its carved gables and tasteful balconies, sloped gently down to the Rhine, which ran in swift eddies beneath. It was a fair and pleasant scene, nor was its influence all lost upon him. He was already calmed. The gay dresses and cheerful faces of the peasants, as they passed and repassed, their merry voices, their hearty recognitions and pleasant greetings, gave a happier channel to his thoughts. He thought of Lizzy,—how she would like it, how enjoy it! and then a sudden pang shot through his heart, and he remembered that she, too, was no longer the same. The illusion that had made her life a fairy tale was gone,—dissipated forever. The spell that gave the charm to her existence was broken! What was all the cultivation of mind,—what the fascinations by which she moved the hearts of all around her,—what the accomplishments by which she adorned society, if they only marked the width of that chasm that separated her from the well-born and the wealthy? To be more than their equal in grace, beauty, and genius, less than their inferior in station, was a sad lesson to learn, and this the last night had taught her.
“Ay,” muttered he, below his breath, “she knows who she is now, but she has yet to learn all that others think of her.” How bitterly, at that instant, did he reproach himself for having revealed his secret! A thousand times better to have relinquished all ambition, and preserved the warm and confiding love she bore him. “We might have gone to America,—to Australia. In some far-away country I could easily earn subsistence, and no trace of my former life follow me. She, at least, would not have been lost to me,—her affection would have clung to me through every trial. Mere reverse of fortune—for such and no more had it seemed—would never have chilled the generous glow of her woman's heart, and I need not have shocked her self-love, nor insulted her dignity, by telling her that she was the gambler's daughter.”
As he was thus musing, the two travellers came out and seated themselves in the porch; the elder one, needing a light for his cigar, touched his hat to Davis, and muttered some broken words of German, to request permission to light it from him. Grog bowed a stiff acquiescence; and the younger said, “Not over-courteous,—a red Jew, I take it!”
“A travelling jeweller, I fancy,” said the other; “twig the smart watch-chain.”
Oh, young gentlemen, how gingerly had you trod there if you only knew how thin was the ice under your feet, and how cold the depth beneath it! Davis arose and walked down the street. The mellow notes of a bugle announced the arrival of the post, and the office must now open in a few minutes. Forcing his way through the throng to the open window, he asked if there were any letters for Captain Christopher? None. Any for Captain Davis? None. Any for the Hon. Annesley Beecher? The same reply. He was turning away in disappointment, when a voice called out, “Wait! here's a message just come in from the Telegraph-office. Please to sign the receipt for it.” He wrote the name C. Christopher boldly, and pushed his way through the crowd once more.
If his heart throbbed painfully with the intensity of anxiety, his fingers never trembled as he broke the seal of the despatch. Three brief lines were all that were there; but three brief lines can carry the tidings of a whole destiny. We give it as it stood:—
“William Peach to Christopher, Neuwied, in Nassau.
“The Viscount died yesterday, at four p. m. Lawyers want A. B.'s address immediately.
“Proceedings already begun.”
Davis devoured the lines four—five times over, and then muttered between his teeth, “Safe enough now,—the match as good as over!”
“I say, George,” said one of the young travellers to his companion, “our friend in the green frock must have got news of a prize in the lottery. Did you ever see anything like his eyes? They actually lit up the blue spectacles.”
“Clap the saddle on that black horse,” cried Grog, as he passed into the stable; “give him a glass of Kirsch-wasser and bring him round to the door.”
“He knows how to treat an old poster,” said the ostler; “it's not the first ride he has taken on a courier's saddle.”