CHAPTER XV. AWAY.
Will not linger longer over this part of my history—already, I fear, much too extended for the patience of my readers. My excuse is that, in looking back, the events I have recorded appear large and prominent, and that certainly they have a close relation with my after-history.
The time arrived when I had to leave England for Switzerland. I will say nothing of my leave-taking. It was not a bitter one. Hope was strong, and rooted in present pleasure. I was capable of much happiness—keenly responsive to the smallest agreeable impulse from without or from within. I had good health, and life was happiness in itself. The blowing of the wind, the shining of the sun, or the glitter of water, was sufficient to make me glad; and I had self-consciousness enough to increase the delight by the knowledge that I was glad.
The fact is I was coming in for my share in the spiritual influences of Nature, so largely poured on the heart and mind of my generation. The prophets of the new blessing, Wordsworth and Coleridge, I knew nothing of. Keats was only beginning to write. I had read a little of Cowper, but did not care for him. Yet I was under the same spell as they all. Nature was a power upon me. I was filled with the vague recognition of a present soul in Nature—with a sense of the humanity everywhere diffused through her and operating upon ours. I was but fourteen, and had only feelings, but something lay at the heart of the feelings, which would one day blossom into thoughts.
At the coach-office in the county-town, I first met my future companion, with his father, who was to see us to our destination. My uncle accompanied me no further, and I soon found myself on the top of a coach, with only one thing to do—make the acquaintance of Charles Osborne. His father was on the box-seat, and we two sat behind; but we were both shy, and for some time neither spoke. Charles was about my own age, rather like his sister, only that his eyes were blue, and his hair a lightish brown. A tremulousness about the mouth betrayed a nervous temperament. His skin was very fair and thin, showing the blue veins. As he did not speak, I sat for a little while watching him, without, however, the least speculation concerning him, or any effort to discover his character. I had not even yet reached the point of trying to find people out. I take what time and acquaintance disclose, but never attempt to forestall, which may come partly from trust, partly from want of curiosity, partly from a disinclination to unnecessary mental effort. But as I watched his face, half-unconsciously, I could not help observing that now and then it would light up suddenly and darken again almost instantly. At last his father turned round, and with some severity, said:
‘You do not seem to be making any approaches to mutual acquaintance. Charles, why don’t you address your companion?’
The words were uttered in the slow tone of one used to matters too serious for common speech. The boy cast a hurried glance at me, smiled uncertainly, and moved uneasily on his seat. His father turned away and made a remark to the coachman.
Mr Osborne was a very tall, thin, yet square-shouldered man, with a pale face, and large features of delicate form. He looked severe, pure, and irritable. The tone of his voice, although the words were measured and rather stilted, led me to this last conclusion quite as much as the expression of his face; for it was thin and a little acrid. I soon observed that Charley started slightly, as often as his father addressed him; but this might be because his father always did so with more or less of abruptness. At times there was great kindness in his manner, seeming, however, less the outcome of natural tenderness than a sense of duty. His being was evidently a weight upon his son’s, and kept down the natural movements of his spirit. A number of small circumstances only led me to these conclusions; for nothing remarkable occurred to set in any strong light their mutual relation. For his side Charles was always attentive and ready, although with a promptitude that had more in it of the mechanical impulse of habit than of pleased obedience. Mr Osborne spoke kindly to me—I think the more kindly that I was not his son, and he was therefore not so responsible for me. But he looked as if the care of the whole world lay on his shoulders; as if an awful destruction were the most likely thing to happen to every one, and to him were committed the toilsome chance of saving some. Doubtless he would not have trusted his boy so far from home, but that the clergyman to whom he was about to hand him over was an old friend, of the same religious opinions as himself.
I could well, but must not, linger over the details of our journey, full to me of most varied pleasure. The constant change, not so rapid as to prevent the mind from reposing a little upon the scenes which presented themselves; the passing vision of countries and peoples, manners and modes of life, so different from our own, did much to arouse and develop my nature. Those flashes of pleasure came upon Charles’s pale face more and more frequently; and ere the close of the first day we had begun to talk with some degree of friendliness. But it became clear to me that with his father ever blocking up our horizon, whether he sat with his broad back in front of us on the coach-box, or paced the deck of a vessel, or perched with us under the hood on the top of a diligence, we should never arrive at any freedom of speech. I sometimes wondered, long after, whether Mr Osborne had begun to discover that he was overlaying and smothering the young life of his boy, and had therefore adopted the plan, so little to have been expected from him, of sending his son to foreign parts to continue his education.