CHAPTER XVII--PHILANTHROPY, PROFESSIONAL AND UNPROFESSIONAL
Full half a year had come and gone, and Mr. Crisparkle sat in awaiting-room in the London chief offices of the Haven of Philanthropy,until he could have audience of Mr. Honeythunder.
In his college days of athletic exercises, Mr. Crisparkle had knownprofessors of the Noble Art of fisticuffs, and had attended two or threeof their gloved gatherings. He had now an opportunity of observing thatas to the phrenological formation of the backs of their heads, theProfessing Philanthropists were uncommonly like the Pugilists. In thedevelopment of all those organs which constitute, or attend, a propensityto 'pitch into' your fellow-creatures, the Philanthropists wereremarkably favoured. There were several Professors passing in and out,with exactly the aggressive air upon them of being ready for a turn-upwith any Novice who might happen to be on hand, that Mr. Crisparkle wellremembered in the circles of the Fancy. Preparations were in progressfor a moral little Mill somewhere on the rural circuit, and otherProfessors were backing this or that Heavy-Weight as good for such orsuch speech-making hits, so very much after the manner of the sportingpublicans, that the intended Resolutions might have been Rounds. In anofficial manager of these displays much celebrated for his platformtactics, Mr. Crisparkle recognised (in a suit of black) the counterpartof a deceased benefactor of his species, an eminent public character,once known to fame as Frosty-faced Fogo, who in days of yoresuperintended the formation of the magic circle with the ropes andstakes. There were only three conditions of resemblance wanting betweenthese Professors and those. Firstly, the Philanthropists were in verybad training: much too fleshy, and presenting, both in face and figure, asuperabundance of what is known to Pugilistic Experts as Suet Pudding.Secondly, the Philanthropists had not the good temper of the Pugilists,and used worse language. Thirdly, their fighting code stood in greatneed of revision, as empowering them not only to bore their man to theropes, but to bore him to the confines of distraction; also to hit himwhen he was down, hit him anywhere and anyhow, kick him, stamp upon him,gouge him, and maul him behind his back without mercy. In these lastparticulars the Professors of the Noble Art were much nobler than theProfessors of Philanthropy.
Mr. Crisparkle was so completely lost in musing on these similarities anddissimilarities, at the same time watching the crowd which came and wentby, always, as it seemed, on errands of antagonistically snatchingsomething from somebody, and never giving anything to anybody, that hisname was called before he heard it. On his at length responding, he wasshown by a miserably shabby and underpaid stipendiary Philanthropist (whocould hardly have done worse if he had taken service with a declaredenemy of the human race) to Mr. Honeythunder's room.
'Sir,' said Mr. Honeythunder, in his tremendous voice, like aschoolmaster issuing orders to a boy of whom he had a bad opinion, 'sitdown.'
Mr. Crisparkle seated himself.
Mr. Honeythunder having signed the remaining few score of a few thousandcirculars, calling upon a corresponding number of families without meansto come forward, stump up instantly, and be Philanthropists, or go to theDevil, another shabby stipendiary Philanthropist (highly disinterested,if in earnest) gathered these into a basket and walked off with them.
'Now, Mr. Crisparkle,' said Mr. Honeythunder, turning his chair halfround towards him when they were alone, and squaring his arms with hishands on his knees, and his brows knitted, as if he added, I am going tomake short work of _you_: 'Now, Mr. Crisparkle, we entertain differentviews, you and I, sir, of the sanctity of human life.'
'Do we?' returned the Minor Canon.
'We do, sir?'
'Might I ask you,' said the Minor Canon: 'what are your views on thatsubject?'
'That human life is a thing to be held sacred, sir.'
'Might I ask you,' pursued the Minor Canon as before: 'what you supposeto be my views on that subject?'
'By George, sir!' returned the Philanthropist, squaring his arms stillmore, as he frowned on Mr. Crisparkle: 'they are best known to yourself.'
'Readily admitted. But you began by saying that we took different views,you know. Therefore (or you could not say so) you must have set up someviews as mine. Pray, what views _have_ you set up as mine?'
'Here is a man--and a young man,' said Mr. Honeythunder, as if that madethe matter infinitely worse, and he could have easily borne the loss ofan old one, 'swept off the face of the earth by a deed of violence. Whatdo you call that?'
'Murder,' said the Minor Canon.
'What do you call the doer of that deed, sir?
'A murderer,' said the Minor Canon.
'I am glad to hear you admit so much, sir,' retorted Mr. Honeythunder, inhis most offensive manner; 'and I candidly tell you that I didn't expectit.' Here he lowered heavily at Mr. Crisparkle again.
'Be so good as to explain what you mean by those very unjustifiableexpressions.'
'I don't sit here, sir,' returned the Philanthropist, raising his voiceto a roar, 'to be browbeaten.'
'As the only other person present, no one can possibly know that betterthan I do,' returned the Minor Canon very quietly. 'But I interrupt yourexplanation.'
'Murder!' proceeded Mr. Honeythunder, in a kind of boisterous reverie,with his platform folding of his arms, and his platform nod of abhorrentreflection after each short sentiment of a word. 'Bloodshed! Abel!Cain! I hold no terms with Cain. I repudiate with a shudder the redhand when it is offered me.'
Instead of instantly leaping into his chair and cheering himself hoarse,as the Brotherhood in public meeting assembled would infallibly have doneon this cue, Mr. Crisparkle merely reversed the quiet crossing of hislegs, and said mildly: 'Don't let me interrupt your explanation--when youbegin it.'
'The Commandments say, no murder. NO murder, sir!' proceeded Mr.Honeythunder, platformally pausing as if he took Mr. Crisparkle to taskfor having distinctly asserted that they said: You may do a littlemurder, and then leave off.
'And they also say, you shall bear no false witness,' observed Mr.Crisparkle.
'Enough!' bellowed Mr. Honeythunder, with a solemnity and severity thatwould have brought the house down at a meeting, 'E-e-nough! My latewards being now of age, and I being released from a trust which I cannotcontemplate without a thrill of horror, there are the accounts which youhave undertaken to accept on their behalf, and there is a statement ofthe balance which you have undertaken to receive, and which you cannotreceive too soon. And let me tell you, sir, I wish that, as a man and aMinor Canon, you were better employed,' with a nod. 'Better employed,'with another nod. 'Bet-ter em-ployed!' with another and the three nodsadded up.
Mr. Crisparkle rose; a little heated in the face, but with perfectcommand of himself.
'Mr. Honeythunder,' he said, taking up the papers referred to: 'my beingbetter or worse employed than I am at present is a matter of taste andopinion. You might think me better employed in enrolling myself a memberof your Society.'
'Ay, indeed, sir!' retorted Mr. Honeythunder, shaking his head in athreatening manner. 'It would have been better for you if you had donethat long ago!'
'I think otherwise.'
'Or,' said Mr. Honeythunder, shaking his head again, 'I might think oneof your profession better employed in devoting himself to the discoveryand punishment of guilt than in leaving that duty to be undertaken by alayman.'
'I may regard my profession from a point of view which teaches me thatits first duty is towards those who are in necessity and tribulation, whoare desolate and oppressed,' said Mr. Crisparkle. 'However, as I havequite clearly satisfied myself that it is no part of my profession tomake professions, I say no more of that. But I owe it to Mr. Neville,and to Mr. Neville's sister (and in a much lower degree to myself), tosay to you that I _know_ I was in the full possession and understandingof Mr. Neville's mind and heart at the time of this occurrence; and that,without in the least colouring or concealing what was to be deplored inhim and required to be corrected, I feel certain that his tale is true.Feeling that
certainty, I befriend him. As long as that certainty shalllast, I will befriend him. And if any consideration could shake me inthis resolve, I should be so ashamed of myself for my meanness, that noman's good opinion--no, nor no woman's--so gained, could compensate mefor the loss of my own.'
Good fellow! manly fellow! And he was so modest, too. There was no moreself-assertion in the Minor Canon than in the schoolboy who had stood inthe breezy playing-fields keeping a wicket. He was simply and staunchlytrue to his duty alike in the large case and in the small. So all truesouls ever are. So every true soul ever was, ever is, and ever will be.There is nothing little to the really great in spirit.
'Then who do you make out did the deed?' asked Mr. Honeythunder, turningon him abruptly.
'Heaven forbid,' said Mr. Crisparkle, 'that in my desire to clear one manI should lightly criminate another! I accuse no one.'
'Tcha!' ejaculated Mr. Honeythunder with great disgust; for this was byno means the principle on which the Philanthropic Brotherhood usuallyproceeded. 'And, sir, you are not a disinterested witness, we must bearin mind.'
'How am I an interested one?' inquired Mr. Crisparkle, smilinginnocently, at a loss to imagine.
'There was a certain stipend, sir, paid to you for your pupil, which mayhave warped your judgment a bit,' said Mr. Honeythunder, coarsely.
'Perhaps I expect to retain it still?' Mr. Crisparkle returned,enlightened; 'do you mean that too?'
'Well, sir,' returned the professional Philanthropist, getting up andthrusting his hands down into his trousers-pockets, 'I don't go aboutmeasuring people for caps. If people find I have any about me that fit'em, they can put 'em on and wear 'em, if they like. That's their lookout: not mine.'
Mr. Crisparkle eyed him with a just indignation, and took him to taskthus:
'Mr. Honeythunder, I hoped when I came in here that I might be under nonecessity of commenting on the introduction of platform manners orplatform manoeuvres among the decent forbearances of private life. Butyou have given me such a specimen of both, that I should be a fit subjectfor both if I remained silent respecting them. They are detestable.'
'They don't suit _you_, I dare say, sir.'
'They are,' repeated Mr. Crisparkle, without noticing the interruption,'detestable. They violate equally the justice that should belong toChristians, and the restraints that should belong to gentlemen. Youassume a great crime to have been committed by one whom I, acquaintedwith the attendant circumstances, and having numerous reasons on my side,devoutly believe to be innocent of it. Because I differ from you on thatvital point, what is your platform resource? Instantly to turn upon me,charging that I have no sense of the enormity of the crime itself, but amits aider and abettor! So, another time--taking me as representing youropponent in other cases--you set up a platform credulity; a moved andseconded and carried-unanimously profession of faith in some ridiculousdelusion or mischievous imposition. I decline to believe it, and youfall back upon your platform resource of proclaiming that I believenothing; that because I will not bow down to a false God of your making,I deny the true God! Another time you make the platform discovery thatWar is a calamity, and you propose to abolish it by a string of twistedresolutions tossed into the air like the tail of a kite. I do not admitthe discovery to be yours in the least, and I have not a grain of faithin your remedy. Again, your platform resource of representing me asrevelling in the horrors of a battle-field like a fiend incarnate!Another time, in another of your undiscriminating platform rushes, youwould punish the sober for the drunken. I claim consideration for thecomfort, convenience, and refreshment of the sober; and you presentlymake platform proclamation that I have a depraved desire to turn Heaven'screatures into swine and wild beasts! In all such cases your movers, andyour seconders, and your supporters--your regular Professors of alldegrees, run amuck like so many mad Malays; habitually attributing thelowest and basest motives with the utmost recklessness (let me call yourattention to a recent instance in yourself for which you should blush),and quoting figures which you know to be as wilfully onesided as astatement of any complicated account that should be all Creditor side andno Debtor, or all Debtor side and no Creditor. Therefore it is, Mr.Honeythunder, that I consider the platform a sufficiently bad example anda sufficiently bad school, even in public life; but hold that, carriedinto private life, it becomes an unendurable nuisance.'
'These are strong words, sir!' exclaimed the Philanthropist.
'I hope so,' said Mr. Crisparkle. 'Good morning.'
He walked out of the Haven at a great rate, but soon fell into hisregular brisk pace, and soon had a smile upon his face as he went along,wondering what the china shepherdess would have said if she had seen himpounding Mr. Honeythunder in the late little lively affair. For Mr.Crisparkle had just enough of harmless vanity to hope that he had hithard, and to glow with the belief that he had trimmed the PhilanthropicJacket pretty handsomely.
He took himself to Staple Inn, but not to P. J. T. and Mr. Grewgious.Full many a creaking stair he climbed before he reached some attic roomsin a corner, turned the latch of their unbolted door, and stood besidethe table of Neville Landless.
An air of retreat and solitude hung about the rooms and about theirinhabitant. He was much worn, and so were they. Their sloping ceilings,cumbrous rusty locks and grates, and heavy wooden bins and beams, slowlymouldering withal, had a prisonous look, and he had the haggard face of aprisoner. Yet the sunlight shone in at the ugly garret-window, which hada penthouse to itself thrust out among the tiles; and on the cracked andsmoke-blackened parapet beyond, some of the deluded sparrows of the placerheumatically hopped, like little feathered cripples who had left theircrutches in their nests; and there was a play of living leaves at handthat changed the air, and made an imperfect sort of music in it thatwould have been melody in the country.
The rooms were sparely furnished, but with good store of books.Everything expressed the abode of a poor student. That Mr. Crisparklehad been either chooser, lender, or donor of the books, or that hecombined the three characters, might have been easily seen in thefriendly beam of his eyes upon them as he entered.
'How goes it, Neville?'
'I am in good heart, Mr. Crisparkle, and working away.'
'I wish your eyes were not quite so large and not quite so bright,' saidthe Minor Canon, slowly releasing the hand he had taken in his.
'They brighten at the sight of you,' returned Neville. 'If you were tofall away from me, they would soon be dull enough.'
'Rally, rally!' urged the other, in a stimulating tone. 'Fight for it,Neville!'
'If I were dying, I feel as if a word from you would rally me; if mypulse had stopped, I feel as if your touch would make it beat again,'said Neville. 'But I _have_ rallied, and am doing famously.'
Mr. Crisparkle turned him with his face a little more towards the light.
'I want to see a ruddier touch here, Neville,' he said, indicating hisown healthy cheek by way of pattern. 'I want more sun to shine uponyou.'
Neville drooped suddenly, as he replied in a lowered voice: 'I am nothardy enough for that, yet. I may become so, but I cannot bear it yet.If you had gone through those Cloisterham streets as I did; if you hadseen, as I did, those averted eyes, and the better sort of peoplesilently giving me too much room to pass, that I might not touch them orcome near them, you wouldn't think it quite unreasonable that I cannot goabout in the daylight.'
'My poor fellow!' said the Minor Canon, in a tone so purely sympatheticthat the young man caught his hand, 'I never said it was unreasonable;never thought so. But I should like you to do it.'
'And that would give me the strongest motive to do it. But I cannot yet.I cannot persuade myself that the eyes of even the stream of strangers Ipass in this vast city look at me without suspicion. I feel marked andtainted, even when I go out--as I do only--at night. But the darknesscovers me then, and I take courage from it.'
Mr. Crisparkle laid a hand upon his shoulder, and stood looking d
own athim.
'If I could have changed my name,' said Neville, 'I would have done so.But as you wisely pointed out to me, I can't do that, for it would looklike guilt. If I could have gone to some distant place, I might havefound relief in that, but the thing is not to be thought of, for the samereason. Hiding and escaping would be the construction in either case.It seems a little hard to be so tied to a stake, and innocent; but Idon't complain.'
'And you must expect no miracle to help you, Neville,' said Mr.Crisparkle, compassionately.
'No, sir, I know that. The ordinary fulness of time and circumstances isall I have to trust to.'
'It will right you at last, Neville.'
'So I believe, and I hope I may live to know it.'
But perceiving that the despondent mood into which he was falling cast ashadow on the Minor Canon, and (it may be) feeling that the broad handupon his shoulder was not then quite as steady as its own naturalstrength had rendered it when it first touched him just now, hebrightened and said:
'Excellent circumstances for study, anyhow! and you know, Mr. Crisparkle,what need I have of study in all ways. Not to mention that you haveadvised me to study for the difficult profession of the law, specially,and that of course I am guiding myself by the advice of such a friend andhelper. Such a good friend and helper!'
He took the fortifying hand from his shoulder, and kissed it. Mr.Crisparkle beamed at the books, but not so brightly as when he hadentered.
'I gather from your silence on the subject that my late guardian isadverse, Mr. Crisparkle?'
The Minor Canon answered: 'Your late guardian is a--a most unreasonableperson, and it signifies nothing to any reasonable person whether he is_ad_verse, _per_verse, or the _re_verse.'
'Well for me that I have enough with economy to live upon,' sighedNeville, half wearily and half cheerily, 'while I wait to be learned, andwait to be righted! Else I might have proved the proverb, that while thegrass grows, the steed starves!'
He opened some books as he said it, and was soon immersed in theirinterleaved and annotated passages; while Mr. Crisparkle sat beside him,expounding, correcting, and advising. The Minor Canon's Cathedral dutiesmade these visits of his difficult to accomplish, and only to becompassed at intervals of many weeks. But they were as serviceable asthey were precious to Neville Landless.
When they had got through such studies as they had in hand, they stoodleaning on the window-sill, and looking down upon the patch of garden.'Next week,' said Mr. Crisparkle, 'you will cease to be alone, and willhave a devoted companion.'
'And yet,' returned Neville, 'this seems an uncongenial place to bring mysister to.'
'I don't think so,' said the Minor Canon. 'There is duty to be donehere; and there are womanly feeling, sense, and courage wanted here.'
'I meant,' explained Neville, 'that the surroundings are so dull andunwomanly, and that Helena can have no suitable friend or society here.'
'You have only to remember,' said Mr. Crisparkle, 'that you are hereyourself, and that she has to draw you into the sunlight.'
They were silent for a little while, and then Mr. Crisparkle began anew.
'When we first spoke together, Neville, you told me that your sister hadrisen out of the disadvantages of your past lives as superior to you asthe tower of Cloisterham Cathedral is higher than the chimneys of MinorCanon Corner. Do you remember that?'
'Right well!'
'I was inclined to think it at the time an enthusiastic flight. Nomatter what I think it now. What I would emphasise is, that under thehead of Pride your sister is a great and opportune example to you.'
'Under _all_ heads that are included in the composition of a finecharacter, she is.'
'Say so; but take this one. Your sister has learnt how to govern what isproud in her nature. She can dominate it even when it is wounded throughher sympathy with you. No doubt she has suffered deeply in those samestreets where you suffered deeply. No doubt her life is darkened by thecloud that darkens yours. But bending her pride into a grand composurethat is not haughty or aggressive, but is a sustained confidence in youand in the truth, she has won her way through those streets until shepasses along them as high in the general respect as any one who treadsthem. Every day and hour of her life since Edwin Drood's disappearance,she has faced malignity and folly--for you--as only a brave nature welldirected can. So it will be with her to the end. Another and weakerkind of pride might sink broken-hearted, but never such a pride as hers:which knows no shrinking, and can get no mastery over her.'
The pale cheek beside him flushed under the comparison, and the hintimplied in it.
'I will do all I can to imitate her,' said Neville.
'Do so, and be a truly brave man, as she is a truly brave woman,'answered Mr. Crisparkle stoutly. 'It is growing dark. Will you go myway with me, when it is quite dark? Mind! it is not I who wait fordarkness.'
Neville replied, that he would accompany him directly. But Mr.Crisparkle said he had a moment's call to make on Mr. Grewgious as an actof courtesy, and would run across to that gentleman's chambers, andrejoin Neville on his own doorstep, if he would come down there to meethim.
Mr. Grewgious, bolt upright as usual, sat taking his wine in the dusk athis open window; his wineglass and decanter on the round table at hiselbow; himself and his legs on the window-seat; only one hinge in hiswhole body, like a bootjack.
'How do you do, reverend sir?' said Mr. Grewgious, with abundant offersof hospitality, which were as cordially declined as made. 'And how isyour charge getting on over the way in the set that I had the pleasure ofrecommending to you as vacant and eligible?'
Mr. Crisparkle replied suitably.
'I am glad you approve of them,' said Mr. Grewgious, 'because I entertaina sort of fancy for having him under my eye.'
As Mr. Grewgious had to turn his eye up considerably before he could seethe chambers, the phrase was to be taken figuratively and not literally.
'And how did you leave Mr. Jasper, reverend sir?' said Mr. Grewgious.
Mr. Crisparkle had left him pretty well.
'And where did you leave Mr. Jasper, reverend sir?' Mr. Crisparkle hadleft him at Cloisterham.
'And when did you leave Mr. Jasper, reverend sir?' That morning.
'Umps!' said Mr. Grewgious. 'He didn't say he was coming, perhaps?'
'Coming where?'
'Anywhere, for instance?' said Mr. Grewgious.
'No.'
'Because here he is,' said Mr. Grewgious, who had asked all thesequestions, with his preoccupied glance directed out at window. 'And hedon't look agreeable, does he?'
Mr. Crisparkle was craning towards the window, when Mr. Grewgious added:
'If you will kindly step round here behind me, in the gloom of the room,and will cast your eye at the second-floor landing window in yonderhouse, I think you will hardly fail to see a slinking individual in whomI recognise our local friend.'
'You are right!' cried Mr. Crisparkle.
'Umps!' said Mr. Grewgious. Then he added, turning his face so abruptlythat his head nearly came into collision with Mr. Crisparkle's: 'whatshould you say that our local friend was up to?'
The last passage he had been shown in the Diary returned on Mr.Crisparkle's mind with the force of a strong recoil, and he asked Mr.Grewgious if he thought it possible that Neville was to be harassed bythe keeping of a watch upon him?
'A watch?' repeated Mr. Grewgious musingly. 'Ay!'
'Which would not only of itself haunt and torture his life,' said Mr.Crisparkle warmly, 'but would expose him to the torment of a perpetuallyreviving suspicion, whatever he might do, or wherever he might go.'
'Ay!' said Mr. Grewgious musingly still. 'Do I see him waiting for you?'
'No doubt you do.'
'Then _would_ you have the goodness to excuse my getting up to see youout, and to go out to join him, and to go the way that you were going,and to take no notice of our local friend?' said Mr. Grewgious. 'Ientertain a sort of fancy fo
r having _him_ under my eye to-night, do youknow?'
Mr. Crisparkle, with a significant need complied; and rejoining Neville,went away with him. They dined together, and parted at the yetunfinished and undeveloped railway station: Mr. Crisparkle to get home;Neville to walk the streets, cross the bridges, make a wide round of thecity in the friendly darkness, and tire himself out.
It was midnight when he returned from his solitary expedition and climbedhis staircase. The night was hot, and the windows of the staircase wereall wide open. Coming to the top, it gave him a passing chill ofsurprise (there being no rooms but his up there) to find a strangersitting on the window-sill, more after the manner of a venturesomeglazier than an amateur ordinarily careful of his neck; in fact, so muchmore outside the window than inside, as to suggest the thought that hemust have come up by the water-spout instead of the stairs.
The stranger said nothing until Neville put his key in his door; then,seeming to make sure of his identity from the action, he spoke:
'I beg your pardon,' he said, coming from the window with a frank andsmiling air, and a prepossessing address; 'the beans.'
Neville was quite at a loss.
'Runners,' said the visitor. 'Scarlet. Next door at the back.'
'O,' returned Neville. 'And the mignonette and wall-flower?'
'The same,' said the visitor.
'Pray walk in.'
'Thank you.'
Neville lighted his candles, and the visitor sat down. A handsomegentleman, with a young face, but with an older figure in its robustnessand its breadth of shoulder; say a man of eight-and-twenty, or at theutmost thirty; so extremely sunburnt that the contrast between his brownvisage and the white forehead shaded out of doors by his hat, and theglimpses of white throat below the neckerchief, would have been almostludicrous but for his broad temples, bright blue eyes, clustering brownhair, and laughing teeth.
'I have noticed,' said he; '--my name is Tartar.'
Neville inclined his head.
'I have noticed (excuse me) that you shut yourself up a good deal, andthat you seem to like my garden aloft here. If you would like a littlemore of it, I could throw out a few lines and stays between my windowsand yours, which the runners would take to directly. And I have someboxes, both of mignonette and wall-flower, that I could shove on alongthe gutter (with a boathook I have by me) to your windows, and draw backagain when they wanted watering or gardening, and shove on again whenthey were ship-shape; so that they would cause you no trouble. Icouldn't take this liberty without asking your permission, so I ventureto ask it. Tartar, corresponding set, next door.'
'You are very kind.'
'Not at all. I ought to apologise for looking in so late. But havingnoticed (excuse me) that you generally walk out at night, I thought Ishould inconvenience you least by awaiting your return. I am alwaysafraid of inconveniencing busy men, being an idle man.'
'I should not have thought so, from your appearance.'
'No? I take it as a compliment. In fact, I was bred in the Royal Navy,and was First Lieutenant when I quitted it. But, an uncle disappointedin the service leaving me his property on condition that I left the Navy,I accepted the fortune, and resigned my commission.'
'Lately, I presume?'
'Well, I had had twelve or fifteen years of knocking about first. I camehere some nine months before you; I had had one crop before you came. Ichose this place, because, having served last in a little corvette, Iknew I should feel more at home where I had a constant opportunity ofknocking my head against the ceiling. Besides, it would never do for aman who had been aboard ship from his boyhood to turn luxurious all atonce. Besides, again; having been accustomed to a very short allowanceof land all my life, I thought I'd feel my way to the command of a landedestate, by beginning in boxes.'
Whimsically as this was said, there was a touch of merry earnestness init that made it doubly whimsical.
'However,' said the Lieutenant, 'I have talked quite enough about myself.It is not my way, I hope; it has merely been to present myself to younaturally. If you will allow me to take the liberty I have described, itwill be a charity, for it will give me something more to do. And you arenot to suppose that it will entail any interruption or intrusion on you,for that is far from my intention.'
Neville replied that he was greatly obliged, and that he thankfullyaccepted the kind proposal.
'I am very glad to take your windows in tow,' said the Lieutenant. 'Fromwhat I have seen of you when I have been gardening at mine, and you havebeen looking on, I have thought you (excuse me) rather too studious anddelicate. May I ask, is your health at all affected?'
'I have undergone some mental distress,' said Neville, confused, 'whichhas stood me in the stead of illness.'
'Pardon me,' said Mr. Tartar.
With the greatest delicacy he shifted his ground to the windows again,and asked if he could look at one of them. On Neville's opening it, heimmediately sprang out, as if he were going aloft with a whole watch inan emergency, and were setting a bright example.
'For Heaven's sake,' cried Neville, 'don't do that! Where are you goingMr. Tartar? You'll be dashed to pieces!'
'All well!' said the Lieutenant, coolly looking about him on thehousetop. 'All taut and trim here. Those lines and stays shall berigged before you turn out in the morning. May I take this short cuthome, and say good-night?'
'Mr. Tartar!' urged Neville. 'Pray! It makes me giddy to see you!'
But Mr. Tartar, with a wave of his hand and the deftness of a cat, hadalready dipped through his scuttle of scarlet runners without breaking aleaf, and 'gone below.'
Mr. Grewgious, his bedroom window-blind held aside with his hand,happened at the moment to have Neville's chambers under his eye for thelast time that night. Fortunately his eye was on the front of the houseand not the back, or this remarkable appearance and disappearance mighthave broken his rest as a phenomenon. But Mr. Grewgious seeing nothingthere, not even a light in the windows, his gaze wandered from thewindows to the stars, as if he would have read in them something that washidden from him. Many of us would, if we could; but none of us so muchas know our letters in the stars yet--or seem likely to do it, in thisstate of existence--and few languages can be read until their alphabetsare mastered.