The only remaining Blue of whom we shall here make mention is Eva, the Sky-Blue. The habit of talking sentiment, in which the Sky-Blue commonly indulges, is in general sufficiently annoying; but in the person of Eva, far be it from us to apply to it such an epithet. Eva is always in heroics: she never speaks a sentence which is not fit to go into a German romance. All this sits very well upon youth and beauty, but in age and ugliness it is insufferable. Eva has a pretty pair of blue eyes, a finely polished neck, an enchanting white arm, and a voice withal, which is never heard but in a whisper, an aria, or a sigh. She has, in short, such a talent at turning our brains, that our Secretary has not inappositely styled her “Blue Ruin.”
OLD BOOTS.
“Whose conceit
Lies in his hamstring, and doth think it rich
To hear the wooden dialogue and sound
’Twixt his stretched footing and the scaffoldage.”
Shakespeare.
Ι have got a pair of old boots.
I bought them at Exeter last summer, and they withstood all the malice of Devonshire paviours in a most inconceivable style. The leather was of a most editorial consistency, and[Pg 158] the sole resembled a quarto. It was in them that I revisited the desolate habitation of my infancy; it was their heavy clanging sound which echoed through those deserted apartments. It was in them, too, that I tottered upon the perilous summit of the Ness; and it was in them that I got wet to the knees in the disagreeable tempest which waited upon the Dawlish regatta. How many pleasant moments, how many dear friends, do they recall to my recollection! It was with their ponderous solidity that I astonished the weak nerves of one, and trod upon the weak toes of another. Every inch of them, old and emeriti as they are, is pregnant with some delightful, some amiable sensation. It was in them that I excogitated the first number of the Etonian—they shall live to look upon the last! I cannot say they were ever very elegant in shape or texture. Like the genius of my friend Swinburne, they possessed more intrinsic strength than outward polish. They served me well, however, and travelled with me to town.
I happened to put them on one wet morning in April. Whatever form or fashion they formerly boasted was altogether extinct; they were as shapeless as an unlicked cub, and as dusky as a cloud on a November morning. I beheld their fallen appearance with some dismay. “I shall be stared at,” I said; “I had better take them off!” But I thought of their former services, and resolved to keep them on.
They had brought their plated heels from the country, and they made a confounded noise upon the pavement as I walked along. Ding, dong, they went at every step, as if I carried a belfry swung at my toes. “This is a disagreeable sort of accompaniment,” I said. “I had better dismiss the musicians.” Just at that moment a young baronet passed me, attended by a fine dog. The dog was in high spirits, and made rather too much noise for the contemplative mood of his master. “Silence, Cæsar! Be quiet, Cæsar!” No, it was all in vain, and Cæsar was kicked into the gutter. “That was cruel!” I said, “to dismiss an old servant, because he was a note too loud! I think I will keep my boots!”
I walked in the Park with Golightly. By the side of my stable footcase his neat and dapper instep cut a peculiarly[Pg 159] smart figure; it was a Molossus tête-à-tête with a Pyrrhic; an Etonian’s skiff moored alongside of a coal-barge. Golightly’s meditations seemed to be of the same cast; he once or twice turned his eyes to the ground, as I thought with no very complacent aspect. “My friends grow ashamed of me,” I said to myself; “I must part with my boots!” As I made up my mind to the sacrifice, Lady Eglantine met us, with her husband. She was constantly looking another way, nodding familiarly to the young men she met, and endeavouring to convince the world how thoroughly she despised the lump of earth which she was obliged to drag after her. “There is a woman,” said Frederick, “who married Sir John for his money, and has not the sense to appear contented with the bargain she has made. What can be more silly than to look down thus upon a man of sterling worth, because he happened to be born a hundred miles from the metropolis?” “What can be more silly?” I repeated inwardly; “I will never look down on my boots again!”
We continued our walk, and Golightly began his usual course of strictures upon the place and the company. Hurried away by the constant flow of jest and wildness with which he embellishes his sketches, I soon forgot both the boots, which had been the theme of my reflections, and the moral lessons which the subject had produced. There was an awkward stone in the way! Oh my unfortunate heels! I broke down terribly, and was very near bringing my companion after me. I rose, and went on in great dudgeon. “This will never do,” I muttered; “this will never do! I must positively cashier my boots!” I looked up: an interesting girl was passing, leaning on the arm of a young man, whose face I thought I recognized. She looked pale and feeble; and, when my friend bowed to her with unusual attention, she seemed embarrassed by the civility. “That is Anna Leith,” said Golightly; “she made an imprudent match with that young man about a year ago, and her father has refused to see her ever since. Poor girl! She is in a rapid decline, and the remedies of her physicians have no effect upon a broken spirit. I would never cast off a beloved object for a single false step!”