"If so be as you would keep a 'dawg,' real sporting and dawg-like, master," that philosopher would observe, "let un know his distance; I strikes 'em whenever I can reach 'em. Fondlin' of 'em only spiles 'em--same as women."
CHAPTER VIII
THE TRUANTS
So the day to which we had looked forward with such delight had arrived at last. Our spirits rose as we got further and further from Everdon, and we never stopped to take breath or to look back till we found ourselves surmounting the last hill above Beverley Manor. By this time we had far outstripped our friend "Nap"--that worthy deeming it inconsistent with all his maxims ever to hurry himself. "Slow and sure, young gentlemen," he observed soon after we started--"slow and sure wins the day. Do'ee go on ahead, and wait for I top of Buttercup Close. I gits on better arter a drop o' drink this hot weather. Never fear, squire, I'll not fail ye! Bold! Bold! you go on with your master." So "Nap" turned into the "Cat and Fiddle," and we pursued our journey alone, not very sorry to be rid of our companion for the present; as, notwithstanding our great admiration for his many resources, his knowledge of animal life, his skilful method with rats, and general manliness of character, we could not but be conscious of our own inferiority in these branches of science, and of a certain want of community in ideas between two young gentlemen receiving a polite education at Everdon, and a rat-catching, dog-stealing poacher of the worst class.
"It's as hot as Hungary," said Victor, seating himself on a stile, and taking off his cap to fan his handsome, heated face. "Oh, Vere, I wish I was back in the Fatherland! Do you remember the great wood at Edeldorf, and the boar we saw close to the ponies? And oh, Vere, how I should like to be upon Gold-kind once again!"
"Yes, Victor, I remember it all," I answered, as I flung myself down among the buttercups, and turned my cheek to the cool air that came up the valley--a breeze that blew from the distant hills to the southward, and swept across many a mile of beauty ere it sighed amongst the woods of Beverley, and rippled the wide surface of the mere; "I shall never forget Edeldorf, nor my first friend, Victor. But what made you think of Hungary just now?"
"Why, your beautiful country," answered Victor, pointing to the luxuriant scene below us--a scene that could exist in England only--of rich meadows, and leafy copses, and green slopes laughing in the sunlight, dotted with huge old standard trees, and the deep shades of Beverley, with the white garden-wall standing out from amongst yew hedges, and rare pines, and exotic evergreens; while the grey turrets of the Manor House peeped and peered here and there through the giant elms that stirred and flickered in the summer breeze. The mere was glittering at our feet, and the distant uplands melting away into the golden haze of summer. Child as I was, I could have cried, without knowing why, as I sat there on the grass, drinking in beauty at every pore. What is it that gives to all beauty, animate or inanimate, a tinge of melancholy?--the greater the beauty, the deeper the tinge. Is it an instinct of mortality? the "bright must fade" of the poet? a shadowy regret for Dives, who, no more than Lazarus, can secure enjoyment for a day? or is it a vague yearning for something more perfect still?--a longing of the soul for the unattainable, which, more than all the philosophy in the universe, argues the necessity of a future state. I could not analyse my feelings. I did not then believe that others experienced the same sensations as myself. I only knew that, like Parson Hugh, I had "great dispositions to cry."
"I wish I were a man, Vere," remarked Victor, as he pulled out his knife, and began to carve a huge V on the top bar of the stile. "I should like to be grown up now, and you too, Vere; what a life we would lead! Let me see, I should have six horses for myself, and three--no, four for you; and a pack of hounds, like Mr. Barker's, that we saw last half, coming home from hunting; and two rifles, both double-barrelled. Do you know, I hit the bull's-eye with papa's rifle, when Prince Vocqsal was at Edeldorf, and he said I was the best shot in Hungary for my age. Look at that crow, Vere, perching on the branch of the old hawthorn--I could put a bullet into him from here. Oh! I wish I had papa's rifle!"
"But should you not like to be King of Hungary, Victor?" said I, for I admired my "chum" so ardently, that I believed him fit for any position, however exalted. "Should you not like to be king, and ride about upon a white horse, with a scarlet tunic and pelisse, and ostrich feathers in your hat, bowing right and left to the ladies at the windows, with a Hungarian body-guard clattering behind you, and the people shouting and flinging up their caps in the street?" I saw it all in my mind's eye, and fancied my friend the hero of the procession. Victor hesitated, and shook his head.
"I think I had rather be a General of Division, like Wallenstein, and command ten thousand cavalry; or better still, Vere, ride and shoot as well as Prince Vocqsal, and go up into the mountains after deer, and kill bears and wolves and wild boars, and do what I like. Wouldn't I just pack up my books, and snap my fingers at March, and leave Everdon to-morrow, if I could take you with me. But you, Vere, if you could have your own way, what would you be?"