"Don't tell me, you stupid fellow. How many more mare's nests must come out of your eyes, before you see anything? But if you must take in such rubbish, just do this, Tom, will you? Keep your eyes wide open, my boy. You know how sharp you are, Tom. But not a word to any one, or it would spoil your game altogether. By the by, where is Daghestan, Tom? You are such a swell at geography."
"Daghestan! I seem to have heard of it, and yet I can't be certain. Persian, I think. No, that is Ispahan. Tut, tut, what a fool I am! – of course I know all about it. Why it's in the United States, a prime place for scalping and buffaloes."
"No, you old muff, that is Dakota. Quite another pair of shoes. I don't want to disturb the Governor, or I could find out in a moment. Never mind, it doesn't matter; and here we go to work again. Now what is the sweetest smell, do you think, in all the world of farming? Not a great over-powering scent, but a delicate freshness through the air."
"I should say the hay on an upland meadow, when it begins to make. Or perhaps a field of new bean-blossom. I never knew that till this year; but upon my word it was stunning."
"No, the most delicate of all scents is from the clover first laid bare among the wheat where it was sown. No blossom of course; but the fragrance of the leaf, among the glossy quills that sheltered it. But come along; if you can't swing hook without peril of manslaughter, you can bind, or you can set up stooks, or earn your keep some little. Why, Grace is worth a score of you! Poor Tom, is your finger bleeding? You must come harvesting in kid gloves."
"I will tell you what it is," said Tom, after keeping his place among the binders for about five minutes. "I am a thoroughgoing countryman, and I know a lot about farming; and you know how I can jump and run, and a good light weight with the gloves I am; but this job beats me altogether. 'Pay your footing, sir, pay your footing!' You'll have to pay for my headstone, George, if you keep me on much longer. How you can go on all day long – but I want you to do something for me, and by the Powers, I have earned it."
He wanted me to promise, in return for all his labours, to give up my plans for the evening, and present myself at dinner-time for the ceremony at the cottage. This, though a very simple business, must be done in the proper form; and then it would be my duty perhaps to offer to take a hand at whist, and be ready for the wearisome wrangle, which even well-bred people make of it. But I had nobler fish to fry.
"Tom, I can't do it. You like that sort of thing; and my mother is delighted with your sprightly little tales. Go and put your brave apparel on. Everybody admires you; and you love that."
He knew that he did. Why should he deny it? The happiness of mankind is pleasure, though it passes without our knowledge, because we never can stop to think of it, – as a man in a coach sees the hedges race by; and if it comes to that, where may you find true bliss so near at home, as in being pleased with your own good self? Our Tom had a happy time. Nothing long tormented him. He carried a lofty standard with him, and flopped its white folds joyously at little gnats and buzzing bees; and he never failed to come up to it, because that standard was himself. "What else could it be?" he says to me. "And that is why everybody likes me."
CHAPTER X
UPON THE GROUND
Alas! to come down from those pleasant heights, if ever I did attain to them, to the turbulent dissatisfaction with oneself, and contempt of every creature in the world, save one, which lonely love engenders! Never had I seemed to myself so low, so awfully prosaic and unpicturesque, as when I was trying to make myself look decent that very evening. Since then I have learned that even pretty girls, who are roses to thistles in comparison with us, are never quite certain at their looking-glass that another touch might not improve them. And what did I behold? A square-built fellow, with a stubby yellow moustache, and a nose fit for the ring, – or to have a ring through it, – a great bulky forehead, like Ticknor's bull-dog, and cheeks like a roasted coffee-berry. The only thing decent was the eyes, firm and strong, of a steadfast blue, and the broad full chin that kept the lips from drooping in a tremble even now. Proud as I was of my Saxon breed, and English build and character, in the abasement of the moment I almost longed for a trace of the comely Norman traits. "As if any girl could love you!" I exclaimed, in parody of that handsome Tom's self-commune.
In for a penny, in for a pound. Without a trial, there's no denial. Handsome is that handsome does. Beauty is only skin-deep. And so on – I laboured to fetch myself up to the mark, but it was a very low one. The neap of the tide, or the low spring water, – which goes ever so much further out, – was ebbing away on the shores of self-esteem as I entered the glen of St. Winifred. Tom Erricker would have descended, as if the valley and its contents belonged to him. Heaviness of heart may sometimes visit even a healthy and robust young man, living the life intended for us, working in the open air all day, and sleeping on a hard palliasse at night. Heaviness and diffidence, and clownish hesitation, and fear of losing precious landmarks in a desert-dazzle. Surely it were better to turn back before they can have seen me, set the sheepish face to the quiet hill, and thank my stars that not one of them yet has turned into a comet.
Sadly was I perpending this, slower and slower at every step, while the shadows of the trees grew longer, and the voice of birds was lower, and the babble of the brook began to sink into the lisping of a cradled child, as the draught of the valley hushed it; and falling into harmony with all these signs, my breath was beginning to abate me, when along a trough of sliding mist like a trysting track for the dusk, appeared the form of my friend Kuban. Courage at once arose within me, and spirit of true patronage. To men and women I may be nought, but to him I am a hero. Lo, how he licks my hand, and whines, as if he had never seen my like, and would never believe it, if he did! He longs to roll upon his back, and offer himself a prostrate sacrifice. But he knows that I should be vexed at that, because it would not be safe for him. The labour of his great heart is to show me all his damages, and make me understand that, but for me, he could not display them. What with love, and what with fear, and the utter unsettlement of my mind, down I went on the grass beside him, and took him paw by paw, to feel how much of him was still existing.
Now if I had thought of it in the coldest blood – if there still were cold blood in me – there was nothing in the world I could have done so wise as this abasement. What says Ovid in the "Art of Love"? Many low things, I am afraid, that no Englishman would stoop to. But if that great Master arose anew, to give lessons to an age of milder passion, probably he would have said to me, "Water those wounds with your tears, my friend."
My eyes, being British, were dry as a bone; but upon them fell, as they looked up, the lustre of a very different pair, like bright stars extinguishing a glow-worm. And the glory of these was deepened by the suffusion of their sparkle with a tender mist of tears. No blush was lurking in the petal of the cheeks, no smile in the brilliant bud of lips; pity and gentle sorrow seemed to be the sole expression.
I dropped the dog's great legs, and rose, and with all the grace that in me lay – and that was very little – took off my hat, and made a bow, the former being of the bowler order, and the latter of the British.
"No, no. Please not to do that," she said, "it is so very grievous. Forgive me, if I am sad to look at. It always comes upon me so, when I behold things beautiful."
"But," I replied, being quite unable to consider myself of that number, even upon such authority, "it is I that should be shedding tears; it is I that behold things beautiful."
"It was of the dog I meant my words," – this was rather a settler for me, – "and the beautiful tokens he manifests of gratitude to the kind gentleman. And we have been desiring always; but the place we could not find. It is my father who will best speak, for he has great talent of languages. He was hoping greatly that you would come. I also have been troubling in my mind heavily, that we must appear so ungrateful. It is now ten days that have passed away. But we could not learn to what place to send; neither did we know the name of Mr. – but I will not spoil it, until you have told me how to pronounce."
"Cranleigh,