A Day's Ride Part 16

I would buy me a horse. Oh, Blonde." thought I, suddenly, "am I not in search of you? Is it not in the hope to recover you that I am here; and, with you for my companion, am I not content to roam the world, taking each incident of the way with the calm of one who asks little of his fellow-man save a kind word as he pa.s.ses, and a G.o.d-speed as he goes?"

I knew perfectly that, with any other beast for my "mount," I could not view the scene of life with the same bland composure. A horse that started, that tripped, that s.h.i.+ed, reared, kicked, craned his neck, or even shook himself, as certain of these beasts do, would have kept me in a paroxysm of anxiety and uneasiness, the least adapted of all modes for thoughtfulness and reflection. Like an ill-a.s.sorted union, it would have given no time save for squabble and recrimination. But Blondel almost seemed to understand my mission, and lent himself to its accomplishment.

There was none of the obtrusive selfishness of an ordinary horse in his ways. He neither asked you to remark the glossiness of his skin, nor the graceful curve of his neck; he did not pa.s.sage nor curvet Superior to the petty arts by which vulgar natures present themselves to notice, he felt that destiny had given him a duty, and he did it.

Thus thinking, I returned once more to the spirit which had first sent me forth to ramble, to wander through the world, spectator, not actor; to be with my fellow-men in sympathy, but not in action; to sorrow and rejoice as they did, but, if possible, to understand life as a drama, in which, so long as I was the mere audience, I could never be painfully afflicted or seriously injured by the catastrophe: a wonderful philosophy, but of which, up to the present, I could not boast any pre-eminent success.

CHAPTER XII. THE DUCHY OF HESSE-KALBBRATONSTADT

I grew impatient to leave Ostend; every a.s.sociation connected with the place was unpleasant. I hope I am not unjust in my estimate of it I sincerely desire to be neither unjust to men nor cities, but I thought it vulgar and commonplace. I know it is hard for a watering-place to be otherwise; there is something essentially low in the green-baize and bathing-house existence,--in that semi-nude sociality, begun on the sands and carried out into deep water, which I cannot abide. I abhor, besides, a lounging population in fancy toilets, a procession of donkeys in scarlet trappings, elderly gentlemen with pocket-telescopes, and fierce old ladies with camp-stools. The worn-out debauchees come to recruit for another season of turtle and whitebait; the half-faded victims of twenty polkas per night, the tiresome politician, pale from a long session, all fiercely bent on fresh diet and sea-breezes, are perfect antipathies to me, and I would rather seek companions.h.i.+p in a Tyrol village than amidst these wounded and missing of a London season. With all this I wanted to get away from the vicinity of the Jopplyns,--they were positively odious to me. Is not the man who holds in his keeping one sc.r.a.p of your handwriting which displays you in a light of absurdity, far more your enemy than the holder of your protested bill? I own I think so. Debt is a very human weakness; like disease, it attacks the best and the n.o.blest amongst us. You' may pity the fellow that cannot meet that acceptance, you may be sorry for the anxiety it occasions him, the fruitless running here and there, the protestations, promises, and even lies he goes through, but no sense of ludicrous scorn mingles with your compa.s.sion, none of that contemptuous laughter with which you read a copy of absurd verses or a maudlin love-letter.

Imagine the difference of tone in him who says: "That's an old bill of poor Potto's; he 'll never pay it now, and I 'm sure I 'll never ask him." Or, "Just read those lines; would you believe that any creature out of Ham well could descend to such miserable drivel as that? It was one Potts who wrote it."

I wonder, could I obtain my ma.n.u.script from Jopplyn before I started.

What pretext could I adduce for the request? While I thus pondered, I packed up my few wearables in my knapsack and prepared for the road.

They were, indeed, a very scanty supply, and painfully suggested to my mind the estimate that waiters and hotel-porters must form of their owner. "Cruel world," muttered I, "whose maxim is, 'By their outsides shall ye judge them.' Had I arrived here with a travelling-carriage and a 'fourgon,' what respect and deference had awaited me,--how courteous the landlord, how obliging the head-waiter! Twenty attentions which could not be charged for in the bill had been shown me; and even had I, in superb dignity, declined to descend from my carriage while the post-horses were being harnessed, a levee of respectful flunkeys would have awaited my orders. I have no doubt but there must be something very intoxicating in all this homage. The smoke of the hecatombs must have affected Jove as a sort of chloroform, or else he would never have sat there sniffing them for centuries. Are you ever destined to experience these sensations, Potts? Is there a time coming when anxious ears will strain to catch your words, and eyes watch eagerly for your slightest gestures? If such an era should ever come, it will be a great one for the ma.s.ses of mankind, and an evil one for sn.o.bbery. Such a lesson as I will read the world on humility in high places, such an example will I give of one elevated, but uncorrupted by fortune."

"Let the carriage come to the door," said I, closing my eyes, as I sunk into my chair in revery. "Tell my people to prepare the entire of the 'Hotel de Belle Vue' for my arrival, and my own cook to preside in the kitchen."

"Is this to go by the omnibus?" said the waiter, suddenly, on entering my room in haste. He pointed to my humble knapsack.

"Yes," said I, in deep confusion,--"yes, that's my luggage,--at least, all that I have here at this moment. Where is the bill? Very moderate, indeed," muttered I, in a tone of approval. "I will take care to recommend your house; attendance prompt, and the wines excellent."

"Monsieur is complimentary," said the fellow, with a grin; "he only experimented upon a 'small Beaune' at one-twenty the bottle."

I scowled at him, and he shrank again.

"And this _objet_ is also monsieur's," said he, taking up a small white canvas bag which was enclosed in my railroad wrapper.

"What is it?" cried I, taking it up. I almost fell back as I saw that it was one of the despatch-bags of the Foreign Office, which in my hasty departure from the Dover train I had accidentally carried off with me.

There it was, addressed to "Sir Shalley Doubleton, H.M.'s Envoy and Minister at Hesse-Kalbbratonstadt, by the Hon. Grey Buller, Attache,"

&c.

Here was not alone what might be construed into a theft, but what it was well possible, might comprise one of the gravest offences against the law: it might be high treason itself! Who would ever credit my story, coupled as it was with the fact of my secret escape from the carriage; my precipitate entrance into the first place I could find, not to speak of the privacy I observed by not mixing with the pa.s.sengers in the mail packet, by keeping myself estranged from all observation in the captain's cabin? Here, too, was the secret of the skipper's politeness to me: he saw the bag, and believed me to be a Foreign Office messenger, and this was his meaning, as he said, "I can answer for him, he can't delay much here." Yes; this was the entire mystification by which I obtained his favor, his politeness, and his protection. What was to be done in this exigency? Had the waiter not seen the bag, and with the instincts of his craft calmly perused the address on it, I believe--nay, I am quite convinced--I should have burned it and its contents on the spot. The thought of his evidence against me in the event of a discovery, however, entirely routed this notion, and, after a brief consideration I resolved to convey the bag to its destination, and trump up the most plausible explanation I could of the way it came into my possession. His Excellency, I reasoned, will doubtless be too delighted to receive his despatches to inquire very minutely as to the means by which they were recovered, nor is it quite impossible that he may feel bound to mark my zeal for the public service by some token of recognition. This was a pleasant turn to give to my thoughts, and I took it with all the avidity of my peculiar temperament. "Yes," thought I, "it is just out of trivial incidents like this a man's fortune is made in life. For one man who mounts to greatness by the great entrance and the state staircase, ten thousand slip in by _la pet.i.te Porte_. It is, in fact, only by these chances that obscure genius obtains acknowledgment How, for example, should this great diplomatist know Potts if some accident should not throw them together? Raleigh flung his laced jacket in a puddle, and for his reward he got a proud Queen's favor. A village apothecary had the good fortune to be visiting the state apartments at the Pavilion when George the Fourth was seized with a fit; he bled him, brought him back to consciousness, and made him laugh by his genial and quaint humor. The king took a fancy to him, named him his physician, and made his fortune. I have often heard it remarked by men who have seen much of life, that n.o.body, not one, goes through the world without two or three such opportunities presenting themselves. The careless, the indolent, the un.o.bservant, and the idle, either fail to remark, or are too slow to profit by them. The sharp fellows, on the contrary, see in such incidents all that they need to lead them to success. Into which of these categories you are to enter, Potts, let this incident decide."

Having by a reference to my John Murray ascertained the whereabouts of the capital of Hesse-Kalbbratonstadt, I took my place at once on the rail for Cologne, reading myself up on its beauty and its belongings as I went There is, however, such a dreary sameness in these small Ducal states, that I am ashamed to say how little I gleaned of anything distinctive in the case before me. The reigning sovereign was, of course, married to a Grand d.u.c.h.ess of Russia, and he lived at a country-seat called Ludwig's l.u.s.t, or Carl's l.u.s.t, as it might be, "took little interest in politics,"--how should he?--and "pa.s.sed much of his time in mechanical pursuits, in which he had attained considerable proficiency;" in other words, he was a middle-aged gentleman, fond of his pipe, and with a taste for carpentry. Some sort of connection with our own royal family had been the pretext for having a resident minister at his court, though what he was to do when he was there seemed not so easy to say. Even John, glorious John, was puzzled how to make a respectable half-page out of his capital, though there was a dome in the Byzantine style, with an altarpiece by Peter von Grys, the angels in the corner being added afterwards by Hans Luders; and there was a Hof Theatre, and an excellent inn, the "Schwein," by Kramm, where the sausages of home manufacture were highly recommendable, no less than a table wine of the host's vineyard, called "Magenschmerzer," and which, Murray adds, would doubtless, if known, find many admirers in England; and lastly, but far from leastly, there was a Music Garten, where popular pieces were performed very finely by an excellent German band, and to which promenade all the fas.h.i.+on of the capital nightly resorted.

I give you all these details, respected reader, just as I got them in my "Northern Germany," and not intending to obtrude any further description of my own upon you; for who, I would ask, could amplify upon his Handbook? What remains to be noted after John has taken the inventory?

Has he forgotten a nail or a saint's s.h.i.+n-bone? With him for a guide, a man may feel that he has done his Em-ope conscientiously; and though it be hard to treasure up all the hard names of poets, painters, priests, and warriors, it is not worse than botany, and about as profitable.

For the same reason that I have given above, I spare my reader all the circ.u.mstances of my journey, my difficulties about carriage, my embarra.s.sments about steamboats and cab fares, which were all of the order that Brown and Jones have experienced, are experiencing, and will continue to experience, till the arrival of that millenary period when we shall all converse in any tongue we please.

It was at nightfall that I drove into Kalbbratonstadt, my postilion announcing my advent at the gates, and all the way to the Platz where the inn stood, by a volley of whip-crackings which might have announced a Grand-Duke or a prima donna. Some cas.e.m.e.nts were hastily opened, as we rumbled along, and the guests of a _cafe_ issued hurriedly into the street to watch us; but these demonstrations over, I gained the "Schwein" without further notice, and descended.

Herr Krainm looked suspiciously at the small amount of luggage of the traveller who arrived by "extra post," but, like an honest German, he was not one to form rash judgments, and so he showed me to a comfortable apartment, and took my orders for supper in all respectfulness.

He waited upon me also at my meal, and gave me opportunity for conversation. While I ate my Carbonade mit Kartoffel-Salad, therefore, I learned that, being already nine o'clock, it was far too late an hour to present myself at the English Emba.s.sy,--for so he designated our minister's residence; that, at this advanced period of the night there were but few citizens out of their beds: the Ducal candle was always extinguished at half-past eight, and only roisterers and revellers kept it up much later. My first surprise over, I owned I liked all this.

It smacked of that simple patriarchal existence I had so long yearned after. Let the learned explain it, but there is, I a.s.sert, something in the early hours of a people that guarantee habits of simplicity, thrift, and order. It is all very well to say that people can be as wicked at eight in the evening as at two or three in the morning; that crime cares little for the clock, nor does vice respect the chronometer; but does experience confirm this, and are not the small hours notorious for the smallest moralities? The Grand-Duke, who is fast asleep at nine, is scarcely disturbed by dreams of cruelties to his people. The police minister, who takes his bedroom candle at the same hour, is seldom hara.s.sed by devising new schemes of torture for his victims. I suffered my host to talk largely of his town and its people; and probably such a listener rarely presented himself, for he certainly improved the occasion. He a.s.sured me, with a gravity that vouched for the conviction, that the capital, though by no means so dear as London or Paris, contained much, if not all, these more pretentions cities could boast.

There was a court, a theatre, a promenade, a public fountain, and a new jail, one of the largest in all Germany. Jenny Lind had once sung at the opera on her way to Vienna; and to prove how they sympathized in every respect with greater centres of population, when the cholera raged at Berlin, they, too, lost about four hundred of their townsfolk. Lastly, he mentioned, and this boastfully, that though neither wanting organs of public opinion, nor men of adequate ability to guide them, the Kalbbratoners had never mixed themselves up in politics, but proudly maintained that calm and dignified att.i.tude which Europe would one day appreciate; that is, if she ever arrived at the crowning knowledge of the benefit of letting her differences be decided by some impartial umpire.

More than once, as I heard him, I muttered to myself, "Potts, this is the very spot you have sought for; here is all the tranquil simplicity of the village, with the elevated culture of a great city. Here are sages and philosophers clad in homespun, Beauty herself in linsey-woolsey. Here there are no vulgar rivalries of riches, no contests in fine clothes, no opposing armies of yellow plush. Men are great by their faculties, not in their flunkeys. How elevated must be the tone of their thoughts, the style of their conversation! and what a lucky accident it was that led you to that goal to which all your wishes and hopes have been converging!--For how much can a man live--a single gentleman like myself--here in your city?" asked I of my host.

He sat down at this, and, filling himself a large goblet of my wine,--the last in the bottle,--he prepared for a lengthy _seance_.

"First of all," said he, "how would he wish to live? Would he desire to mingle in our best circles, equal to any in Europe, to know Herr von Krugwitz, and the Gnadige Frau von Steinhaltz?"

"Well," thought I, "these be fair ambitions." And I said, "Yes, both of them."

"And to be on the list of the court dinners? There are two yearly, one at Easter, the other on his Highness's birthday, whom may Providence long protect!"

To this also might he aspire.

"And to have a stall at the Grand Opera, and a carriage to return visits--twice in carnival time--and to live in a handsome quarter, and dine every day at our _table d'hote_ here with General von Beulwitz and the Hof rath von Schlaff-richter? A life like this is costly, and would scarcely be comprised under two thousand florins a year."

How my heart bounded at the notion of refinement, culture, elevated minds, and polished habits; "science," indeed, and the "musical gla.s.ses," all for one hundred and sixty pounds per annum.

"It is not improbable that you will see me your guest for many a day to come," said I, as I ordered another bottle, and of a more generous vintage, to honor the occasion.

My host offered no opposition to my convivial projects; nay, he aided them by saying,--

"If you have really an appreciation for something super-excellent in wine, and wish to taste what Freiligrath calls 'der Deutschen Nectar,' I 'll go and fetch you a bottle."

"Bring it by all means," said I. And away he went on his mission.

"Providence blessed me with two hands," said he, as he re-entered the room, "and I have brought two flasks of Lieb Herzentbaler."

There is something very artistic in the way your picture-dealer, having brushed away the dust from a Mieris or a Gerard Dow, places the work in a favorite light before you, and then stands to watch the effect on your countenance. So, too, will your man of rare ma.n.u.scripts and illuminated missals offer to your notice some illegible treasure of the fourth century; but these are nothing to the mysterious solemnity of him who, uncorking a bottle of rare wine, waits to note the varying sensations of your first enjoyment down to your perfect ecstasy.

I tried to perform my part of the piece with credit: I looked long at the amber-colored liquor in the gla.s.s; I sniffed it and smiled approvingly; the host smiled too, and said, "Ja!" Not another syllable did he utter, but how expressive was that "Ja!" "Ja!" meant, "You are right, Potts, it is the veritable wine of 1764, bottled for the Herzog Ludwig's marriage; every drop of it is priceless. Mark the odor, how it perfumes the air around us; regard the color--the golden hair of Venus can alone rival it; see how the oily globules cling to the gla.s.s!" "Ja!"

meant all this, and more.

As I drank off my gla.s.s, I was sorely puzzled by the precise expression in which to couch my approval; but he supplied it and said, "Is it not Gottlich?" and I said it _was_ Gottlich; and while we finished the two bottles, this solitary phrase sufficed for converse between us, "Gottlich!" being uttered by each as he drained his gla.s.s, and "Gottlich!" being re-echoed by his companion.

There is great wisdom in reducing our admiration to a word; giving, as it were, a cognate number to our estimate of anything. Wherever we amplify, we usually blunder: we employ epithets that disagree, or, in even less questionable taste, soar into extravagances that are absurd.

Besides, our moods of highest enjoyment are not such as dispose to talkativeness; the ecstasy that is most enthralling is self-contained.

Who, on looking at a glorious landscape, does not feel the insufferable bathos of the descriptive enthusiast beside him? How grateful would he own himself if he would be satisfied with one word for his admiration! And if one needs this calm repose, this unbroken peace, for the enjoyment of scenery, equally is it applicable to our appreciation of a curious wine. I have no recollection that any further conversation pa.s.sed between us, but I have never ceased, and most probably never shall cease, to have a perfect memory of the pleasant ramble of my thoughts as I sat there sipping, sipping. I pondered long over a plan of settling down in this place for life, by what means I could realize.

sufficient to live in that elevated sphere the host spoke of. If Potts pere--I mean my father--were to learn that I were received in the highest circles, admitted to all that was most socially exclusive, would he be induced to make an adequate provision for me? He was an ambitious and a worldly man; would he see in these beginnings of mine the seeds of future greatness? Fathers, I well knew, are splendidly generous to their successful children, and "the poor they send empty away." It is so pleasant to aid him who does not need a.s.sistance, and such a hopeless task to be always saving him who _will_ be drowned.

My first care, therefore, should be to impress upon my parent the appropriateness of his contributing his share to what already was an accomplished success. "Wis.h.i.+ng, as the French say, to make you a part in my triumph, dear father, I write these lines." How I picture him to my mind's eye as he reads this, running frantically about to his neighbors, and saying, "I have got a letter from Algy,--strange boy,--but as I always foresaw, with great stuff in him, very remarkable abilities. See what he has done,--struck out a perfect line of his own in life; just the sort of thing genius alone can do. He went off from this one'

morning by way of a day's excursion, never returned,--never wrote. All my efforts to trace him were in vain. I advertised, and offered rewards, did everything, without success; and now, after all this long interval, comes a letter by this morning's post to tell me that he is well, happy, and prosperous. He is settled, it appears, in a German capital with a hard name, a charming spot, with every accessory of enjoyment in it: men of the highest culture, and women of most graceful and attractive manner; as he himself writes, 'the elegance of a Parisian _salon_ added to the wisdom of the professor's cabinet.' Here is Algy living with all that is highest in rank and most distinguished in station; the favored guest of the Prince, the bosom friend of the English minister; his advice sought for, his counsel asked in every difficulty; trusted in the most important state offices, and taken into the most secret counsels of the duchy. Though the requirements of his station make heavy demands upon his means, very little help from me will enable him to maintain a position which a few years more will have consolidated into a rank recognized throughout Europe." Would the flintiest of fathers, would the most primitive rock-hearted of parents, resist an appeal like this? It is no hand to rescue from the waves is sought, but a little finger to help to affluence. "Of course you 'll do it, Potts, and do it liberally; the boy is a credit to you. He will place your name where you never dreamed to see it. What do you mean to settle on him? Above all things, no stinginess; don't disgust him."

I hear these and such-like on every hand; even the most close-fisted and miserly of our acquaintances will be generous of their friend's money; and I think I hear the sage remarks with which they season advice with touching allusions to that well-known s.h.i.+p that was lost for want of a small outlay in tar. "Come down handsomely, Potts," says a resolute man, who has sworn never to pay a sixpence of his son's debts. "What better use can we make of our h.o.a.rdings than to render our young people happy?"

I don't like the man who says this, but I like his sentiments; and I am much pleased when he goes on to remark that "there is no such good investment as what establishes a successful son. Be proud of the boy, Potts, and thank your stars that he had a soul above senna, and a spirit above sal volatile!"

As I invent all this play of dialogue for myself, and picture the speakers before me, I come at last to a small peevish little fellow named Lynch, a merchant tailor, who lived next door to us, and enjoyed much of my father's confidence. "So they tell me you have heard from that runaway of yours, Potts. Is it true? What face does he put upon his disgraceful conduct? What became of the livery-stable-keeper's horse? Did he sell him, or ride him to death? A bad business if he should ever come back again, which, of course, he's too wise for. And where is he now, and what is he at?"

"You may read this letter, Mr. Lynch," replies my father; "he is one who can speak for himself." And Lynch reads and sn.i.g.g.e.rs, and reads again.

I see him as plainly as if he were but a yard from me. "I never heard of this ducal capital before," he begins, "but I suppose it's like the rest of them,--little obscure dens of pretentious poverty, plenty of ceremony, and very little to eat. How did he find it out? What brought him there?"