"My bill," said I.
CHAPTER V
A sparrow came and sat upon one of my window-boxes as I was at breakfast this morning, chirping loudly for some reason or other as though it were summer instead of one of those very early days of spring which seem to have dropped by accident from the lap of a generous Providence.
Possibly it was the bright yellow of the crocuses, now in bloom, which attracted him. A day when his ancestors lived in trees instead of upon sooty house-tops was no doubt dimly stirring in his semi-consciousness. He almost persuaded me that his chirping was a song, so much lusty energy did he throw into it. It was only when I came to listen carefully that I realized there were but two notes to his compass. Truly he made the most of them. Doubtless it was a lesson to me to make the most of such shallow compass as is mine. If it were, I did not learn of it. My mind had been made up for some time now and, as soon as Moxon had cleared away, I sat down at my desk and wrote a letter:
My dear Bellwattle,—I want to make you a fitting present in gratitude for my visit to Ballysheen. Don't attempt to ask me why I have left it so long as this, contenting myself with the mere letter of thanks such as one writes to any hostess. For you were not any hostess and therefore have every justification for asking why, until now, I have treated you so differently. Believe me, I did not think of you when I wrote as of any guest to any hostess, nor of Cruikshank as to any host. I have never forgotten one moment on those cliffs or in that garden, for it seems to me, as I look back upon it, that in those few short weeks, you made me familiar with a wonderful attitude towards life which I would give a great deal to be able to adopt myself. However, that, as you know, is impossible, needing as it does such addition to the personal equation as can never enter into the sum of my experience.
What attitude is available to me under the circumstances, I confess myself absolutely unable to determine. I am one of those unfortunate individuals who, even in the midst of such lively surroundings as these, are of a solitary nature, yet loathe nothing so much as their own company. The little bones which I have had to pick with Providence are so dry by this—you do not know it, but I am forty-four—that to sit alone and worry at them now would be beyond human endurance. Occasionally in bed in the early morning or at night when I am left alone and my man Moxon has retired, I find myself speculating upon what niche in God's gallery of human beings I have been meant to fill. So far as I can see there is not one. And then, in accordance with all human nature, I try to shift the blame upon some shoulders other than my own. Circumstance, that my mother should have died when she did—my father, that he has never brought me up to any profession—then last of all, inevitably myself, that I have taken advantage of the allowance he is making me, spending my money upon easy travelling all over the world which is an education in its way, but fits no man for the real exigencies of life. He could learn more in a cobbler's shop in the Mile End Road. There is as much wisdom as cure in the washing in Jordan. The thing to one's hand is no doubt the thing for one's grasp.
This is mere preliminary, just to show you that I shall never come into occupation of Cruikshank's little cottage in the hollow. Imagine Providence and myself sitting there alone of the long winter nights with a few dry bones upon the table between us! I could not bear such company as that. No—if I am to cut a niche for myself anywhere, it must be in that room in God's gallery, where, as I heard a man say the other day, you will find the hoi polloi. I will give you the whole of his sentence, for Cruikshank's benefit if not for yours. He was describing the disadvantages of a new club.
"What I'm afraid will happen," he said, "is this. You'll get all the hoi polloi there. There'll be nothing recherché about it at all. Plebeian—that's what it'll be and, if there's one thing I hate more than another it is that jarring sound of the vox populi."
Show this to Cruikshank and he will explain why he is amused. This man had evidently travelled for his education.
I hope this letter is not too egotistical, a hope based doubtless upon the fact that I know it is. And in a sense, I mean it to be. I entertain a foolish desire that you should appreciate my point of view, so that if at any time you might hear news of me of one sort or another you would be able to apply this confession as a key to the understanding of what you had heard.