De Vaux was not unlike Carlo in body and mind, if you make allowance for the fact that the man was royally endowed compared to the dog. The young lord was a fine handsome young fellow, more elegant than muscular, in spite of the muscular education he had received both at his public school and his university, yet quite manly enough to despise sybarite indulgences and face hardships when they came in the way of his sport or travels. What was enervated in him had to do with his excessive fastidiousness and his want of hopefulness, his mental and moral languor. He was sufficiently thoughtful always, and courteously considerate when one came across him personally—so kindly that he would not have harmed a fly—always unless in the way of sport.
De Vaux was grieved to disappoint his noble parents, who would have liked him, with his rank and talents, to enter the world and do his devoir, and win his spurs gallantly. But to him the game was not worth the candle; and when he regarded his fellow-players and the weapons he must use, he shrank unconquerably from the contest. Altogether, he was of as little use in the toiling, struggling world—except it might be in affording an example of refraining from the indulgence of gross appetites which he did not possess, and of pursuing cultivation for its own sake—as one can well imagine in the case of a highly responsible man.
Perhaps, as a consequence, De Vaux suffered greatly, like Carlo, from that sickening of a vague disease, that inexplicable, unbearable depression, that weight of sympathy thrown back on itself, which will always beset such men. I do not know how he could have stood it, without breaking out into some abnormal eccentricity, or seeking a miserable refuge from himself and his weakness in excess or vice, if it had not been for the intellectual and muscular sides of him, both of which had been carefully developed. They afforded him the relief of a variety of interests in study, art, science, in long walks and rides—wherein not only his nerves and muscle were braced, but a wholesome love of natural history was farther fostered, in fishing, shooting, deer-stalking, hunting, each in its proper season. Neither was he, in his father’s house, at liberty to neglect intercourse with his neighbours, though they afforded him much less solace, and frequently grated painfully on his fine perceptions, so that they drove him to give tokens of sinking, with all his advantages, into the life of a confirmed recluse before he was thirty years of age.
Withal, it was rather a melancholy spectacle to see De Vaux and Carlo sitting listlessly together on a glad spring morning, or a serene summer evening, by the bank of a trout stream, or at the man’s study window—De Vaux’s long legs crossed, his long hand supporting his drooping head, his eyes gazing wistfully and moodily into the distance; while the dog, reflecting closely his master’s expression, if not his attitude, sat with his head declined also, and his nose sniffing the air in a kind of tender despondency—both so weary and sad, with wonderfully treacherous fascination for them in the energy-sapping sadness—and yet both so goodly in their respective fashions; De Vaux not yet twenty-three, Carlo not turned ten years.
There was only one element of light to be thankful for in this, among the many mysteries of existence. When you thought of the low life of Prince and his friend Jack, with all their shortcomings and deprivations, and, in the middle of it, how courageously—though it might be with a stolid courage—the dog and the lad endured misfortunes unmerited as well as merited, and what an absolute hearty relish remained to them wherewith to seize and enjoy every scrap of pleasure that came in their way in the course of the day’s difficulties; how they were not weary of life, in spite of the troubles they had known, but were always looking forward, in the teeth of their experience, to happier to-morrows—even when Prince was dragging out his dreary days in Mr. Jerry Noakes’ yard—then you could not help seeing there was compensation in life both for men and dogs. At least, where men’s blundering arrangements are concerned, it is the tendency of riches to produce surfeit, and of polish to sharpen the blade to an impracticable fineness, till it not only wears out the scabbard, but bends and breaks in the hand of him who uses it.
But, for my part, I think the man and dog here were far too much alike for their good. If they could have been parted, and De Vaux fitted with a rollicking, though gruff young mastiff or Newfoundland, and Carlo with a light-hearted, if empty-headed young squire, it would have been better for both of them.
In course of time the earl became superannuated, and more responsibilities were heaped on De Vaux’s shoulders, bending, notwithstanding their developed muscularity, under their present load, which the bearer was growing more and more fain to shirk.
My lady, plied with representations by friends and relatives of the family, became alarmed at the supineness of her son, with the waste of all his youthful promise, and his increasing inclination to let the active current of life sweep by him, while he buried himself in a remote retreat, taking with him his unemployed talent to rust there.
One winter evening at the castle the curtains were drawn, and tea had been brought in and carried out. Mother and son were alone together in their several corners, behind their respective screens, and having their private little tables, laden with books, drawing materials, ladies’ work, and flowers, between them and the blazing fire. Carlo was stretched decorously on the white bear skin which served as a hearthrug. Then the countess spoke out, and urged on De Vaux all the arguments which could stir his principles or rouse his ambition. But he had always the same answer.
Was it his father’s wishes that were pled? Ah! it was too late, so far as affording his father gratification went; besides, De Vaux had been persuaded from the first that, since he must have followed his own convictions, he would have run counter to his father’s opinions, and only contrived to vex and disappoint him in a public career.