“And wherefore should they take or care for thought, The unreasoning vulgar willingly obey, And leaving toil and poverty behind. Run forth by different ways, the blissful boon to find.” WEST’S Education.
“Poor, boy! your story interests me. The events are romantic, but the moral is practical, old, everlasting—life, boy, life. Poverty by itself is no such great curse; that is, if it stops short of starving. And passion by itself is a noble thing, sir; but poverty and passion together—poverty and feeling—poverty and pride—the poverty one is not born to,—but falls into;—and the man who ousts you out of your easy-chair, kicking you with every turn he takes, as he settles himself more comfortably—why there’s no romance in that—hard every-day life, sir! Well, well:—so after your brother’s letter you resigned yourself to that fellow Smith.”
“No; I gave him my money, not my soul. I turned from his door, with a few shillings that he himself thrust into my hand, and walked on—I cared not whither—out of the town, into the fields—till night came; and then, just as I suddenly entered on the high-road, many miles away, the moon rose; and I saw, by the hedge-side, something that seemed like a corpse; it was an old beggar, in the last state of raggedness, disease, and famine. He had laid himself down to die. I shared with him what I had, and helped him to a little inn. As he crossed the threshold, he turned round and blessed me. Do you know, the moment I heard that blessing a stone seemed rolled away from my heart? I said to myself, ‘What then! even I can be of use to some one; and I am better off than that old man, for I have youth and health.’ As these thoughts stirred in me, my limbs, before heavy with fatigue, grew light; a strange kind of excitement seized me. I ran on gaily beneath the moonlight that smiled over the crisp, broad road. I felt as if no house, not even a palace, were large enough for me that night. And when, at last, wearied out, I crept into a wood, and laid myself down to sleep, I still murmured to myself, ‘I have youth and health.’ But, in the morning, when I rose, I stretched out my arms, and missed my brother!... In two or three days I found employment with a farmer; but we quarrelled after a few weeks; for once he wished to strike me; and somehow or other I could work, but not serve. Winter had begun when we parted.—Oh, such a winter!—Then—then I knew what it was to be houseless. How I lived for some months—if to live it can be called—it would pain you to hear, and humble me to tell. At last, I found myself again in London; and one evening, not many days since, I resolved at last—for nothing else seemed left, and I had not touched food for two days—to come to you.”
“And why did that never occur to you before?”!
“Because,” said Philip, with a deep blush,—“because I trembled at the power over my actions and my future life that I was to give to one, whom I was to bless as a benefactor, yet distrust as a guide.”
“Well,” said Love, or Gawtrey, with a singular mixture of irony and compassion in his voice; “and it was hunger, then, that terrified you at last even more than I?”
“Perhaps hunger—or perhaps rather the reasoning that comes from hunger. I had not, I say, touched food for two days; and I was standing on that bridge, from which on one side you see the palace of a head of the Church, on the other the towers of the Abbey, within which the men I have read of in history lie buried. It was a cold, frosty evening, and the river below looked bright with the lamps and stars. I leaned, weak and sickening, against the wall of the bridge; and in one of the arched recesses beside me a cripple held out his hat for pence. I envied him!—he had a livelihood; he was inured to it, perhaps bred to it; he had no shame. By a sudden impulse, I, too, turned abruptly round—held out my hand to the first passenger, and started at the shrillness of my own voice, as it cried ‘Charity.’”
Gawtrey threw another log on the fire, looked complacently round the comfortable room, and rubbed his hands. The young man continued,—
“‘You should be ashamed of yourself—I’ve a great mind to give you to the police,’ was the answer, in a pert and sharp tone. I looked up, and saw the livery my father’s menials had worn. I had been begging my bread from Robert Beaufort’s lackey! I said nothing; the man went on his business on tiptoe, that the mud might not splash above the soles of his shoes. Then, thoughts so black that they seemed to blot out every star from the sky—thoughts I had often wrestled against, but to which I now gave myself up with a sort of mad joy—seized me: and I remembered you. I had still preserved the address you gave me; I went straight to the house. Your friend, on naming you, received me kindly, and without question placed food before me—pressed on me clothing and money—procured me a passport—gave me your address—and now I am beneath your roof. Gawtrey, I know nothing yet of the world but the dark side of it. I know not what to deem you—but as you alone have been kind to me, so it is to your kindness rather than your aid, that I now cling—your kind words and kind looks—yet—” he stopped short, and breathed hard.
“Yet you would know more of me. Faith, my boy, I cannot tell you more at this moment. I believe, to speak fairly, I don’t live exactly within the pale of the law. But I’m not a villain! I never plundered my friend and called it play!—I never murdered my friend and called it honour!—I never seduced my friend’s wife and called it gallantry!” As Gawtrey said this, he drew the words out, one by one, through his grinded teeth, paused and resumed more gaily: “I struggle with Fortune; voila tout! I am not what you seem to suppose—not exactly a swindler, certainly not a robber! But, as I before told you, I am a charlatan, so is every man who strives to be richer or greater than he is.