So it was arranged that Queeker should travel with them. Moreover, he succeeded in obtaining from his employers permission to delay for three days the prosecution of the mission—which, although secret, was not immediately pressing—in order that he might visit Jenkinsjoy. It was fortunate that, when he went to ask this brief holiday, he found Mr Merryheart in the office. Had it been his mischance to fall upon Dashope, he would have received a blunt refusal and prompt dismissal—so thoroughly were the joys of that gentleman identified with the woes of other people.
But, great though Queeker’s delight undoubtedly was on this occasion, it was tempered by a soul-harassing care, which drew forth whole quires of poetical effusions to the moon and other celestial bodies. This secret sorrow was caused by the dreadful and astonishing fact, that, do what he would to the contrary, the weather-cock of his affections was veering slowly but steadily away from Katie, and pointing more and more decidedly towards Fanny Hennings! It is but simple justice to the poor youth to state that he loathed and abhorred himself in consequence.
“There am I,” he soliloquised, on the evening before the journey began, “a monster, a brute, a lower animal almost, who have sought with all my strength to gain—perchance have gained—the innocent, trusting heart of Katie Durant, and yet, without really meaning it, but, somehow, without being able to help it, I am—not falling in love; oh! no, perish the thought! but, but—falling into something strangely, mysteriously, incomprehensibly, similar to—Oh! base ingrate that I am, is there no way; no back-door by which—?”
Starting up, and seizing a pen, at this point of irrepressible inspiration, he wrote, reading aloud as he set down the burning thoughts—
Oh for a postern in the rear,
Where wretched man might disappear;
And never more should seek her!
Fly, fly to earth’s extremest bounds,—
Bounds, mounds, lounds, founds, kounds, downds, rounds, pounds, zounds!—hounds—ha! hounds—I have it—
“Fly, fly to earth’s extremest bounds,
With huntsmen, horses, horns, and hounds
And die!—dejected Queeker.
“I wonder,” thought Queeker, as he sat biting the end of his quill—his usual method of courting inspiration, “I wonder if there is anything prophetic in these lines! Durant said that his friend has splendid horses. They may, perhaps, be hunters! Ha! my early ambition, perchance, youth’s fond dream, may yet be realised! But let me not hope. Hope always tells a false as well as flattering tale to me. She has ever been, in my experience” (he was bitter at this point) “an incorrigible li— ahem! story-teller.”
Striking his clenched fist heavily on the table, Queeker rose, put on his hat, and went round to Mr Durant’s merely to inquire whether he could be of any service—not that he could venture to offer assistance in the way of packing, but there might be something such as roping trunks, or writing and affixing addresses, in regard to which he might perhaps render himself useful.
“Why, Miss Durant,” he said, on entering, “you are always busy.”