“What! you would have me face all Bath with the story of having beaten off three footpads single-handed? Oh no, Mr. Sheridan! Anything in reason I am quite willing to state, but I have still some respect left for our acquaintance in Bath, and I decline to lay such a trust in their credulity. Why, sir, Falstaff’s story of the knaves in Kendal Green would seem rational compared with mine! The wits would dub me Sir John the first day I appeared abroad after telling such a tale. And the lampooners—that pitiful tribe who fancy that possessing Pope’s scurrility is the same thing as possessing his genius—— Ah, I hear some of the doggerel—I could even make a quatrain or two myself on my own valour! Well, we shall not trouble ourselves further on this matter just now; we shall let our good friends take the first step. So soon as we hear what story they invent to account for my wounds, we shall know how much truth is needed; but we must economise our store. By the way, Mr. Sheridan, I wonder, if one of us had been killed last night, would Miss Linley be more distressed had it been you than if I had been the victim?”
The suddenness of Mr. Long’s remark produced upon Dick the same effect as his remark of the previous night had done—that remark which Dick had pondered over during his sleepless hours.
He had no reply ready for such a question as Mr. Long had suggested to him—unless, indeed, Mr. Long would accept his unreadiness as a reply—his unreadiness and the confused, downcast look on his face, of which he himself was painfully conscious.
Some time had passed before Dick recovered himself sufficiently to be able to glance at Mr. Long, and then the expression which Mr. Long wore did not tend to make him feel more at ease. The smile which Dick saw on his face was a curious one—a disconcerting one.
“My poor boy,” said Mr. Long, “I have no right to plague you with suggestions such as these. Still, I cannot help wondering if you are yet reconciled to the thought of Miss Linley’s having promised to marry me?”
“I am reconciled, sir,” said Dick in a low voice. “I was not so until I went to see her yesterday. I went, I may as well confess to you, Mr. Long, in a spirit of—of—no, not mockery; I could not think of myself falling so low as to have a desire to mock her—no; I only meant to show her that I did not mind—that I did not mind.”
“And all the time you were eating your heart out? My poor boy, I can appreciate what was in your mind, not merely because I am not without imagination, but because I have an excellent memory. But you saw her, and I do not think that you were quite the same man when you left her; I cannot understand any man remaining unchanged in the presence of that divine creature.”
“She changed me. She made me to look on life differently from the way in which I had previously thought of it. She made me to perceive what ’tis to have a soul. She made me see that the real life which is worthy to be lived by a man is—is——”
“You can feel what it is, that is enough,” said Mr. Long when Dick paused, lacking the words to express what was in his heart. “’Tis enough for a man to feel—only to the few is it given to put these feelings into words, and those few we call poets. The poet is the one who has the power to give expression to what the man feels. ’Tis doing an injustice to men to suggest, as some people do, that all the feeling is on the part of the poet. Have I interrupted your thoughts by anticipating you, Mr. Sheridan?”
“You have said what was on my mind and in my heart—to-day,” cried Dick. “I was a fool to make the attempt to define what I felt. I am not a poet.”