After a time, Mizzlemist took the knife from the Colonel, and entreated him to be calm. He was immediately obedient. He filled a bumper, glanced at his friend, and in a soft but very decided voice, as though making himself a solemn promise of some especial treat, said—“I’ll have his blood, sir, his blood.”
CHAPTER XI.
We have again to introduce the reader to Gilbert Carraways. The circumstances under which the reader and he last met were so very different, so opposite to the present condition of the worthy gentleman,—that we may be justified in treating the old man with something of the deference due to a stranger. In one of the Primrose Places to be found selvaging London—for we care not to be a whit more definite in the whereabout—Carraways, his wife and daughter, had taken refuge from the storm that had broken over their heads; a storm that had made clear work of every stick of their property. No hurricane could more completely sweep away a field of sugar-cane. In a small, neat, comfortable room sat the ruined family. The old man was reading, or thought he read. In a few weeks, the snow had come down upon his head with a heavy fall. In a few weeks, his cheeks were lined and lengthened. He had been held—so ruthlessly held—face to face with misery, that his smile, that was constant as the red in his cheek, had well nigh vanished. Now and then, as he exchanged looks with his daughter, it glimmered a little; played about his mouth, to leave it only in utter blankness. Still he went on reading; still he turned page after page; and believed that he was laying in a stock of knowledge for his future life. For he had again—he would tell his daughter with a bright look—he had again to begin the world. Hard beginning! Dreary voyage, with neither youth to fight the storm; nor the hope of youth to wile away the long, dark, dreary, watch—to sing the daylight in. But this he would not think of. At least he thought he would not. He felt himself as strong as ever; yes, even stronger. He could not have hoped to have borne the blow so well. He was never better; never. His glorious health was left him; and therefore, why despair? In this way will the brain of the stout man cheat itself. It will feel whole, and strong; and for the viler cracks and flaws, they are not to be heeded. Mere trifles. And then some day, some calm and sunny time, that peace has seemed to choose for itself, for a soft, sweet pause—with the tyrant brain secure and all vain-glorious,—the trifle kills. In this way do strong men die upwards.
Gilbert Carraways was, at our first meeting, set about by all the creature delights of life. He was the lord of abundance. The man who had nothing to do with want and misery, but to exercise the noblest prerogative of happy humanity—namely, to destroy them wheresoever he found them preying upon his fellows. Wealth was gone. He was a beggar; but in his poverty were thoughts that might glorify his fireside. He had used his means for good; and, at least, might feel enriched by the harvest of his recollections. With his face anxious, lengthened, and dim, there was a dignity in the old man that we do not think we ever recognised at the Hall. For he had to bear a load of misery; and he sat erect, and with his spirit conquering, looked serenely about him.
Bessy and her mother sat at work, and to see them for the first time, they seemed as though they had never had a finer room to sit in. Already were they so self-accommodated to the place. In their days of fortune, Mrs. Carraways—good, kind creature ever!—nevertheless loved to show to folks the finest outside. She confessed to a pride in exhibiting to the world the best holiday proofs of worldly prosperity. Her husband would call her his old butterfly. And, in a few weeks, she had cast all such thoughts, even as the butterfly its wings, never again to be enjoyed, or dreamt of. She looked the good wife of one of Carraways’ late clerks, at some hundred and fifty pounds a year; with those sixty shillings a week—to provide home and food, and raiment; the worldly all-in-all. And if at times she was a little, just a little wayward, in the full blaze of fortune—as the best-tempered folks are sometimes apt to be tetchy in over-warm weather—now, she sat in the shade all gentleness, and smiles, and patience; as though she, perhaps, remembered those little breaks of temper, to be afforded when at ease with the world, but all too serious, too wilful an extravagance for a poor man’s home.
Bessy was at first astonished, broken-hearted that she had never seen, scarcely heard, and that coldly, ceremoniously, of many of her friends. She could not for a long time comprehend the cause. And then, she speedily agreed with her mother that, possibly, an extreme sense of delicacy kept them absent—silent. “They may not like to intrude upon our misfortune,” said Mrs. Carraways very sadly. Bessy at once acknowledged it must be so with Miss Candituft. She recollected that with that young lady it was a favourite phrase—“the sacredness of adversity.” And then Bessy could not but think—“She might have written more than once.” But Bessy was young and hopeful. The tempest had blown over her; and once passed, she was again smiling and erect. A lily after a thunder-storm.
Such the group at the fireside. There is, however, a person at the street-door well-known to the reader. We have tried, with all his faults, to make him a sort of favourite. This outside person is Basil Pennibacker. He has galloped to London, and straightway taken the road to Primrose Row. He has hardly shaped his thoughts into the roughest form of speech; but he feels that he has something to say: nay, his heart is full of it—and it shall out before he sleeps. And with this brave determination, he marches to the door; feeling, nevertheless, as though with all his courage, he was walking up to a cannon. He stops short at the step. The next moment he mounts it, and the next he raises the knocker. And the next, as softly, tenderly as ever human fingers touched a human wound, he lays the knocker down. He is much relieved, and gently descends the step. It is too late—much too late to call. Hush! The clock of St. Asphodel’s strikes nine—it is unreasonable, unmannerly to think of it. Basil crosses the road, and much comforts himself looking at an upper window. There is a light; and now a female figure moves to and fro. It is Bessy! Her light, active form; the turn of her head, so like a wood-nymph’s! Now, she comes to the window; and now the light is gone and the room is dark. For a moment, the hope of Basil is quenched—dead. And the next instant, raising his hat, and gazing at the window, he cries—“God bless you!” and takes to his heels, as though he had done something wrong, unmannerly.
Now, as it must be evident to the well-meaning few who read these pages, that we propose to set down nothing but truth, let us clear up as we go. It was not Bessy, as believed by Basil. It was a solitary, pale young thing—one of the cloud of genteel phantoms that flit across our daily path—who compliment life, by endeavouring to live by needle and thread. It was not Bessy, upon whom Basil called down a benison. But let it rest upon the stranger’s head. Who so spiritually rich as not to need it?
“And do you think, Bessy”—said her father, for having disposed of Basil for the night, we return to the fireside—“and do you think, my wench, that you’ll make a good sailor?”