THE EXPECTANT.—A TALE OF LIFE.
When a boy I was sent to school in a country village in one of the midland counties. Midvale lay on a gentle slope at the foot of a lofty hill, round which the turnpike-road wound scientifically to diminish the steepness of the declivity; and the London coach, as it smoked along the white road regularly at half-past four o'clock, with one wheel dragged, might be tracked for two good miles before it crossed the bridge over the brook below and disappeared from sight. We generally rushed out of the afternoon school as the twanging horn of the guard woke up our quiet one street; and a fortunate fellow I always thought was Griffith Maclean, our only day-boarder, who on such occasions would often chase the flying mail, and seizing the hand of the guard, an old servant of his uncle's, mount on the roof, and ride as far as he chose for the mere trouble of walking back again. Our school consisted of between twenty and thirty boys, under the care of a master who knew little and taught still less; for having three sermons to preach every Sunday, besides two on week-days, he had but little leisure to spare for the duties of the school; and the only usher he could afford to keep was a needy, hard-working lad, whose poverty and time-worn habiliments deprived him of any moral control over the boys. This state of things, coupled with the nervous and irascible temper of the pedagogue, naturally produced a good deal of delinquency, which was duly scored off on the backs of the offenders every morning before breakfast. Thus what we wanted in tuition was made up in flogging; and if the master was rarely in the school, he made amends for his absence by a vigorous use of his prerogative while he was there. Griffith Maclean, who was never present on these occasions, coming only at nine o'clock, was yet our common benefactor. One by one he had taken all our jackets to a cobbling tailor in the village, and got them for a trifling cost so well lined with old remnants of a kind of felt or serge, for the manufacture of which the place was famous, that we could afford to stand up without wincing, and even to laugh through our wry faces under the matutinal ceremony of caning. Further, Griffith was the sole means of communication with the shopkeepers, and bought our cakes, fruit, and playthings, when we had money to spend, and would generally contrive to convey a hunch of bread and cheese from home, to any starving victim who was condemned to fasting for his transgressions. In return for all this sympathy we could do no less than relieve Griffith, as far as possible, from the trouble and 'bother,' as he called it, of study. We worked his sums regularly for days beforehand, translated his Latin, and read over his lessons with our fingers as he stood up to repeat them before the master.
Griffith's mother was the daughter of a gentleman residing in the neighborhood of Midvale. Fifteen years ago she had eloped with a young Irish officer—an unprincipled fortune-hunter—who, finding himself mistaken in his venture, the offended father having refused any portion, had at first neglected and finally deserted his wife, who had returned home with Griffith, her only child, to seek a reconciliation with her parents. This had never been cordially granted. The old man had other children who had not disobeyed him, and to them, at his death, he bequeathed the bulk of his property, allotting to Griffith's mother only a life-interest in a small estate which brought her something less than a hundred pounds a year. But the family were wealthy, and the fond mother hoped, indeed fully expected, that they would make a gentlemanly provision for her only child. In this expectation Griffith was nurtured and bred; and being reminded every day that he was born a gentleman, grew up with the notion that application and labor of any sort were unbecoming the character he would have to sustain. He was a boy of average natural abilities, and with industry might have cultivated them to advantage: but industry was a plebeian virtue, which his silly mother altogether discountenanced, and withstood the attempts, not very vigorous, of the schoolmaster to enforce. Thus he was never punished, seldom reproved; and the fact that he was the sole individual so privileged in a school where both reproof and punishment were so plentiful, could not fail of impressing him with a great idea of his own importance. Schoolboys are fond of speculating on their future prospects, and of dilating on the fancied pleasures of manhood and independence, and the delights of some particular trade or profession upon which they have set their hearts; the farm, the forge, the loom, the counter, the press, the desk, have as eager partisans among the knucklers at taw as among older children; and while crouching round the dim spark of fire on a wet winter day, we were wont to chalk out for ourselves a future course of life when released from the drudgery, as we thought it, of school. Some declared for building, carpentering, farming, milling, or cattle-breeding; some were panting for life in the great city; some longed for the sea and travel to foreign countries; and some for a quiet life at home amid rural sports and the old family faces. Above all, Griffith Maclean towered in unapproachable greatness. "I shall be a gentleman," said he; "if I don't have a commission in the army—which I am not sure I should like, because it's a bore to be ordered off where you don't want to go—I shall have an official situation under government, with next to nothing to do but to see life and enjoy myself." Poor Griffith!
Time wore on. One fine morning I was packed, along with a couple of boxes, on the top of the London coach; and before forty-eight hours had elapsed, found myself bound apprentice to a hard-working master and a laborious profession in the heart of London. Seven years I served and wrought in acquiring the art and mystery, as my indentures termed it, of my trade. Seven times in the course of this period it was my pleasant privilege to visit Midvale, where some of my relations dwelt, and at each visit I renewed the intimacy with my old school-fellow, Griffith. He was qualifying himself for the life of a gentleman by leading one of idleness; and I envied him not a little his proficiency in the use of the angle and the gun, and the opportunity he occasionally enjoyed of following the hounds upon a borrowed horse. At my last visit, at the end of my term of apprenticeship, I felt rather hurt at the cold reception his mother gave me, and at the very haughty, off-hand bearing of Griffith himself; and I resolved to be as independent as he by giving him an opportunity of dropping the acquaintance if he chose. I understood, however, that both he and his mother were still feeding upon expectation, and that they hoped every thing from General ——, to whom application had been made on Griffith's behalf, as the son of an officer, and that they confidently expected a cadetship that would open up the road to promotion and fortune. The wished-for appointment did not arrive. Poor Griffith's father had died without leaving that reputation behind him which might have paved the way for his son's advancement, and the application was not complied with. This was a mortifying blow to the mother, whose pride it painfully crushed. Griffith, now of age, proposed that they should remove to London, where, living in the very source and centre of official appointments, they might bring their influence to bear upon any suitable berth that might be vacant. They accordingly left Midvale and came to town, where they lived in complete retirement upon a very limited income. I met Griffith accidentally after he had been in London about a year. He shook me heartily by the hand, was in high spirits, and informed me that he had at length secured the promise of an appointment to a situation in S—— House, in case T——, the sitting member, should be again returned for the county. His mother had three tenants, each with a vote, at her command; and he was going down to Midvale, as the election was shortly coming off, and would bag a hundred votes, at least, he felt sure, before polling-day. I could not help thinking as he rattled away, that this was just the one thing he was fit for. With much of the air, gait, and manners of a gentleman, he combined a perfection in the details of fiddle-faddle and small talk rarely to be met with; and from having no independent opinion of his own upon any subject whatever, was so much the better qualified to secure the voices of those who had. He went down to Midvale, canvassed the whole district with astonishing success, and had the honor of dining with his patron, the triumphant candidate, at the conclusion of the poll. On his return to town, in the overflowings of his joy, he wrote a note to me expressive of his improved prospects, and glorying in the certainty of at length obtaining an official appointment. I was very glad to hear the good news, but still more surprised at the terms in which it was conveyed; the little that Griffith had learned at school he had almost contrived to lose altogether in the eight or nine years that had elapsed since he had left it. He seemed to ignore the very existence of such contrivances as syntax and orthography; and I really had grave doubts as to whether he was competent to undertake even an official situation in S—— House.
These doubts were not immediately resolved. Members of parliament, secure in their seats, are not precisely so anxious to perform as they sometimes are ready to promise when their seats seem sliding from under them. It was very nearly two years before Griffith received any fruit from his electioneering labors, during which time he had been leading a life of lounging, do-nothing, dreamy semi-consciousness, occasionally varied by a suddenly-conceived and indignant remonstrance, hurled in foolscap at the head of the defalcating member for the county. During all this time fortune used him but scurvily: his mother's tenants at Midvale clamored for a reduction of rent; one decamped without payment of arrears; repairs were necessary, and had to be done and paid for. These drawbacks reduced the small income upon which they lived, and sensibly affected the outward man of the gentlemanly Griffith: he began to look seedy, and occasionally borrowed a few shillings of me when we casually met, which he forgot to pay. I must do him the credit to say that he never avoided me on account of these trifling debts, but with an innate frankness characteristic of his boyhood, continued his friendship and his confidences. At length the happy day arrived. He received his appointment, bearing the remuneration of £200 a year, which he devoutly believed was to lead to something infinitely greater, and called on me on his way to the office where he was to be installed and indoctrinated into his function.
The grand object of her life—the settlement of her son—thus accomplished, the mother returned to Midvale, where she shortly after died, in the full conviction that Griffith was on the road to preferment and fortune. The little estate—upon the proceeds of which she had frugally maintained herself and son—passed, at her death, into the hands of one of her brothers, none of whom took any further notice of Griffith, who had mortally offended them by his instrumentality in returning the old member for the county, whom it was their endeavor to unseat. There is a mystery connected with Griffith's tenure of office which I could never succeed in fathoming. He held it but for six months, when, probably not being competent to keep it, he sold it to an advertising applicant, who offered a douceur of £300 for such a berth. How the transfer was arranged I can not tell, not knowing the recondite formula in use upon these occasions. Suffice it to say that Griffith had his £300, paid his little debts, renewed his wardrobe and his expectations, and began to cast about for a new patron. He was now a gentleman about town, and exceedingly well he both looked and acted the character: he had prudence enough to do it upon an economical scale, and though living upon his capital, doled it out with a sparing hand. As long as his money lasted he did very well; but before the end of the third year the bloom of his gentility had worn off, and it was plain that he was painfully economizing the remnant of his funds.
About this time I happened to remove to a different quarter of the metropolis, and lost sight of him for more than a year. One morning, expecting a letter of some importance, I waited for the postman before walking to business. What was my astonishment on responding personally to his convulsive "b'bang," to recognize under the gold-banded hat and red-collared coat of that peripatetic official the gentlemanly figure and features of my old schoolfellow Griffith Maclean!
"What! Griff?" I exclaimed: "is it possible?—can this be you?"
"Well," said he, "I am inclined to think it is. You see, old fellow, a man must do something or starve. This is all I could get out of that shabby fellow T—— and I should not have got this had I not well worried him. He knows I have no longer a vote for the county. However, I shan't wear this livery long: there are good berths enough in the post-office. If they don't pretty soon give me something fit for a gentleman to do, I shall take myself off as soon as any thing better offers. But, by George? there is not much time allowed for talking: I must be off—farewell!"
Soon after this meeting the fourpenny deliveries commenced; and these were before long followed by the establishment of the universal Penny-post. This was too much for Griffith. He swore he was walked off his legs; that people did nothing upon earth but write letters; that he was jaded to death by lugging them about; that he had no intention of walking into his coffin for the charge of one penny; and, finally, that he would have no more of it. Accordingly he made application for promotion on the strength of his recommendation, was refused as a matter of course, and vacated his post for the pleasure of a week's rest, which he declared was more than it was honestly worth.