Tracey and I exchanged looks. So, then, here was a motive for activity. But why was the motive towards activity in pursuits requiring so little of the intellect for which Gray had been characterised, and so little of the knowledge which his youth had acquired, so much stronger than the motive towards a career which proffered an incalculably larger scope for his powers? Here, there was no want of energy—here, there had been no philosophical disdain of ambition—here, no great wealth leaving no stimulant to desires—no niggard poverty paralysing the sinews of hope. The choice of retirement had been made in the full vigour of a life trained from boyhood to the exercises that discipline the wrestlers for renown.
While I was thus musing, Gray led the way towards the farmyard, and on reaching it said to me,—
“Since you do farm, if only by deputy, I must show you the sheep with which I hope to win the first prize at our agricultural show in September.”
“So you still care for prizes?” said I: “the love of fame is not dead within your breast.”
“Certainly not; ‘Pride attends us still.’ I am very proud of the prizes I have already won; last year for my wurzel—the year before, for the cow I bred on my own pastures.”
We crossed the farmyard, and arrived at the covered sheep-pens. I thought I had never seen finer sheep than those which Gray showed me with visible triumph. Then we two conversed with much animation upon the pros and cons in favour of stall-feeding versus free grazing, while Tracey amused himself, first in trying to conciliate a great dog, luckily for him chained up in the adjoining yard, and next, in favouring the escape of a mouse who had incautiously quitted the barn, and ventured within reach of a motherly hen, who seemed to regard it as a monster intent on her chicks.
Reaching the house, Gray conducted us up a flight of oak stairs—picturesque in its homely old-fashioned way—with wide landing-place, adorned by a blue china jar, filled with pot-pourri, and by a tall clock (one of Tompion’s, now rare), in walnut-wood case; consigning us each to a separate chamber, to refresh ourselves by those simple ablutions, with which, even in rustic retirements, civilised Englishmen preface the hospitable rites of Ceres and Bacchus.
The room in which I found myself was one of those never seen out of England, and only there in unpretending country-houses which have escaped the innovating tastes of fashion. A bedstead of the time of George I., with mahogany fluted columns and panels at the bedhead, dark and polished, decorated by huge watch-pockets of some great-grandmother’s embroidery, white spotless curtains, the walls in panel, also painted white, and covered in part with framed engravings a century old. A large high screen, separating the washstand from the rest of the room, made lively by old caricatures and prints, doubtless the handiwork of female hands long stilled. A sweet, not strong, odour of dried lavender escaped from a chest of drawers, polished as bright as the bedstead. The small lattice-paned window opened to the fresh air; the woodbine framing it all round from without; amongst the woodbine the low hum of bees. A room for early sleep and cheerful rising with the eastern sun, which the window faced.
Tracey came into my room while I was still looking out of the casement, gazing on the little gardenplot without, bright with stocks and pinks and heartsease, and said, “Well, you see £600 a-year can suffice to arrest a clever man’s ambition.”
“I suspect,” answered I, “that the ambition is not arrested but turned aside to the object of doubling the £600 a-year. Neither ambition nor the desire of gain is dead in that farmyard.”