Evan Harrington, v2
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George Meredith >> Evan Harrington, v2
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In a tone plainly directed at him, he said: 'Well, Harry, tired of this?
The agriculturals are good fun, but I can't stand much of the small
cockney. A blackguard who tries to make jokes out of the Scriptures
ought to be kicked!'
Harry rejoined, with wet lips: 'Wopping stuff, this ale! Who's that you
want to kick?'
'Somebody who objects to his bray, I suppose,' Mr. Raikes struck in,
across the table, negligently thrusting out his elbow to support his
head.
'Did you allude to me, sir?' Laxley inquired.
'I alluded to a donkey, sir.' Raikes lifted his eyelids to the same level
as Laxley's: 'a passing remark on that interesting animal.'
His friend Harry now came into the ring to try a fall.
'Are you an usher in a school?' he asked, meaning by his looks what men
of science in fisticuffs call business.
Mr. Raikes started in amazement. He recovered as quickly.
'No, sir, not quite; but I have no doubt I should be able to instruct you
upon a point or two.'
'Good manners, for instance?' remarked the third young cricketer, without
disturbing his habitual smile.
'Or what comes from not observing them,' said Evan, unwilling to have
Jack over-matched.
'Perhaps you'll give me a lesson now?' Harry indicated a readiness to
rise for either of them.
At this juncture the chairman interposed.
'Harmony, my lads!--harmony to-night.'
Farmer Broadmead, imagining it to be the signal for a song, returned:
'All right, Mr.--- Mr. Chair! but we an't got pipes in yet. Pipes
before harmony, you know, to-night.'
The pipes were summoned forthwith. System appeared to regulate the
proceedings of this particular night at the Green Dragon. The pipes
charged, and those of the guests who smoked, well fixed behind them,
celestial Harmony was invoked through the slowly curling clouds. In
Britain the Goddess is coy. She demands pressure to appear, and great
gulps of ale. Vastly does she swell the chests of her island children,
but with the modesty of a maid at the commencement. Precedence again
disturbed the minds of the company. At last the red-faced young farmer
led off with 'The Rose and the Thorn.' In that day Chloe still lived; nor
were the amorous transports of Strephon quenched. Mountainous inflation
--mouse-like issue characterized the young farmer's first verse.
Encouraged by manifest approbation he now told Chloe that he 'by Heaven!
never would plant in that bosom a thorn,' with such a volume of sound as
did indeed show how a lover's oath should be uttered in the ear of a
British damsel to subdue her.
'Good!' cried Mr. Raikes, anxious to be convivial.
Subsiding into impertinence, he asked Laxley, 'Could you tip us a
Strephonade, sir? Rejoiced to listen to you, I'm sure! Promise you my
applause beforehand.'
Harry replied hotly: 'Will you step out of the room with me a minute?'
'Have you a confession to make?' quoth Jack, unmoved. 'Have you planted
a thorn in the feminine flower-garden? Make a clean breast of it at the
table. Confess openly and be absolved.'
While Evan spoke a word of angry reproof to Raikes, Harry had to be
restrained by his two friends. The rest of the company looked on with
curiosity; the mouth of the chairman was bunched. Drummond had his eyes
on Evan, who was gazing steadily at the three. Suddenly 'The fellow
isn't a gentleman!' struck the attention of Mr. Raikes with alarming
force.
Raikes--and it may be because he knew he could do more than Evan in this
respect--vociferated: 'I'm the son of a gentleman!'
Drummond, from the head of the table, saw that a diversion was
imperative. He leaned forward, and with a look of great interest said:
'Are you? Pray, never disgrace your origin, then.'
'If the choice were offered me, I think I would rather have known his
father,' said the smiling fellow, yawning, and rocking on his chair.
'You would, possibly, have been exceedingly intimate--with his right
foot,' said Raikes.
The other merely remarked: 'Oh! that is the language of the son of a
gentleman.'
The tumult of irony, abuse, and retort, went on despite the efforts of
Drummond and the chairman. It was odd; for at Farmer Broadmead's end of
the table, friendship had grown maudlin: two were seen in a drowsy
embrace, with crossed pipes; and others were vowing deep amity, and
offering to fight the man that might desire it.
'Are ye a friend? or are ye a foe?' was heard repeatedly, and
consequences to the career of the respondent, on his choice of
affirmatives to either of these two interrogations, emphatically
detailed.
It was likewise asked, in reference to the row at the gentlemen's end:
'Why doan' they stand up and have 't out?'
'They talks, they speechifies--why doan' they fight for 't, and then be
friendly?'
'Where's the yarmony, Mr. Chair, I axes--so please ye?' sang out Farmer
Broadmead.
'Ay, ay! Silence!' the chairman called.
Mr. Raikes begged permission to pronounce his excuses, but lapsed into a
lamentation for the squandering of property bequeathed to him by his
respected uncle, and for which--as far as he was intelligible--he
persisted in calling the three offensive young cricketers opposite to
account.
Before he could desist, Harmony, no longer coy, burst on the assembly
from three different sources. 'A Man who is given to Liquor,' soared
aloft with 'The Maid of sweet Seventeen,' who participated in the
adventures of 'Young Molly and the Kicking Cow'; while the guests
selected the chorus of the song that first demanded it.
Evan probably thought that Harmony was herself only when she came single,
or he was wearied of his fellows, and wished to gaze a moment on the
skies whose arms were over and around his young beloved. He went to the
window and threw it up, and feasted his sight on the moon standing on the
downs. He could have wept at the bitter ignominy that severed him from
Rose. And again he gathered his pride as a cloak, and defied the world,
and gloried in the sacrifice that degraded him. The beauty of the night
touched him, and mixed these feelings with mournfulness. He quite forgot
the bellow and clatter behind. The beauty of the night, and heaven knows
what treacherous hope in the depths of his soul, coloured existence
warmly.
He was roused from his reverie by an altercation unmistakeably fierce.
Raikes had been touched on a tender point. In reply to a bantering
remark of his, Laxley had hummed over bits of his oration, amid the
chuckles of his comrades. Unfortunately at a loss for a biting retort,
Raikes was reduced to that plain confession of a lack of wit; he offered
combat.
'I 'll tell you what,' said Laxley, 'I never soil my hands with a
blackguard; and a fellow who tries to make fun of Scripture, in my
opinion is one. A blackguard--do you hear? But, if you'll give me
satisfactory proofs that you really are what I have some difficulty in
believing the son of a gentleman--I 'll meet you when and where you
please.'
'Fight him, anyhow,' said Harry. 'I 'll take him myself after we finish
the match to-morrow.'
Laxley rejoined that Mr. Raikes must be left to him.
'Then I'll take the other,' said Harry. 'Where is he?'
Evan walked round to his place.
'I am here,' he answered, 'and at your service.'
'Will you fight?' cried Harry.
There was a disdainful smile on Evan's mouth, as he replied: 'I must
first enlighten you. I have no pretensions to your blue blood, or
yellow. If, sir, you will deign to challenge a man who is not the son of
a gentleman, and consider the expression of his thorough contempt for
your conduct sufficient to enable you to overlook that fact, you may
dispose of me. My friend here has, it seems, reason to be proud of his
connections. That you may not subsequently bring the charge against me
of having led you to "soil your hands"--as your friend there terms it--
I, with all the willingness in the world to chastise you or him for your
impertinence, must first give you a fair chance of escape, by telling you
that my father was a tailor.'
The countenance of Mr. Raikes at the conclusion of this speech was a
painful picture. He knocked the table passionately, exclaiming:
'Who'd have thought it?'
Yet he had known it. But he could not have thought it possible for a man
to own it publicly.
Indeed, Evan could not have mentioned it, but for hot fury and the ale.
It was the ale in him expelling truth; and certainly, to look at him,
none would have thought it.
'That will do,' said Laxley, lacking the magnanimity to despise the
advantage given him, 'you have chosen the very best means of saving your
skins.'
'We 'll come to you when our supply of clothes runs short,' added Harry.
'A snip!'
'Pardon me !' said Evan, with his eyes slightly widening, 'but if you
come to me, I shall no longer give you a choice of behaviour. I wish you
good-night, gentlemen. I shall be in this house, and am to be found
here, till ten o'clock to-morrow morning. Sir,' he addressed the
chairman, 'I must apologize to you for this interruption to your
kindness, for which I thank you very sincerely. It 's "good-night," now,
sir,' he pursued, bowing, and holding out his hand, with a smile.
The chairman grasped it: 'You're a hot-headed young fool, sir: you're an
ill-tempered ferocious young ass. Can't you see another young donkey
without joining company in kicks-eh? Sit down, and don't dare to spoil
the fun any more. You a tailor! Who'll believe it? You're a nobleman
in disguise. Didn't your friend say so?--ha! ha! Sit down.' He pulled
out his watch, and proclaiming that he was born into this world at the
hour about to strike, called for a bumper all round.
While such of the company as had yet legs and eyes unvanquished by the
potency of the ale, stood up to drink and cheer, Mark, the waiter,
scurried into the room, and, to the immense stupefaction of the chairman,
and amusement of his guests, spread the news of the immediate birth of a
little stranger on the premises, who was declared by Dr. Pillie to be a
lusty boy, and for whom the kindly landlady solicited good luck to be
drunk.
CHAPTER XIII
THE MATCH OF FALLOW FIELD AGAINST BECKLEY
The dramatic proportions to which ale will exalt the sentiments within
us, and our delivery of them, are apt to dwindle and shrink even below
the natural elevation when we look back on them from the hither shore of
the river of sleep--in other words, wake in the morning: and it was with
no very self-satisfied emotions that Evan, dressing by the full light of
day, reviewed his share in the events of the preceding night. Why, since
he had accepted his fate, should he pretend to judge the conduct of
people his superiors in rank? And where was the necessity for him to
thrust the fact of his being that abhorred social pariah down the throats
of an assembly of worthy good fellows? The answer was, that he had not
accepted his fate: that he considered himself as good a gentleman as any
man living, and was in absolute hostility with the prejudices of society.
That was the state of the case: but the evaporation of ale in his brain
caused him to view his actions from the humble extreme of that delightful
liquor, of which the spirit had flown and the corpse remained.
Having revived his system with soda-water, and finding no sign of his
antagonist below, Mr. Raikes, to disperse the sceptical dimples on his
friend's face, alluded during breakfast to a determination he had formed
to go forth and show on the cricket-field.
'For, you know,' he observed, 'they can't have any objection to fight
one.'
Evan, slightly colouring, answered: 'Why, you said up-stairs, you thought
fighting duels disgraceful folly.'
'So it is, so it is; everybody knows that,' returned Jack; 'but what can
a gentleman do?'
'Be a disgraceful fool, I suppose,' said Evan: and Raikes went on with
his breakfast, as if to be such occasionally was the distinguished fate
of a gentleman, of which others, not so happy in their birth, might well
be envious.
He could not help betraying that he bore in mind the main incidents of
the festival over-night; for when he had inquired who it might be that
had reduced his friend to wear mourning, and heard that it was his father
(spoken by Evan with a quiet sigh), Mr. Raikes tapped an egg, and his
flexible brows exhibited a whole Bar of contending arguments within.
More than for the love of pleasure, he had spent his money to be taken
for a gentleman. He naturally thought highly of the position, having
bought it. But Raikes appreciated a capital fellow, and felt warmly to
Evan, who, moreover, was feeding him.
If not born a gentleman, this Harrington had the look of one, and was
pleasing in female eyes, as the landlady, now present, bore witness,
wishing them good morning, and hoping they had slept well. She handed to
Evan his purse, telling him she had taken it last night, thinking it
safer for the time being in her pocket; and that the chairman of the
feast paid for all in the Green Dragon up to twelve that day, he having
been born between the hours, and liking to make certain: and that every
year he did the same; and was a seemingly rough old gentleman, but as
soft-hearted as a chicken. His name must positively not be inquired, she
said; to be thankful to him was to depart, asking no questions.
'And with a dart in the bosom from those eyes--those eyes!' cried Jack,
shaking his head at the landlady's resistless charms.
'I hope you was not one of the gentlemen who came and disturbed us last
night, Sir?' she turned on him sharply.
Jack dallied with the imputation, but denied his guilt.
'No; it wasn't your voice,' continued the landlady. 'A parcel of young
puppies calling themselves gentlemen! I know him. It's that young Mr.
Laxley: and he the nephew of a Bishop, and one of the Honourables! and
then the poor gals get the blame. I call it a shame, I do. There's that
poor young creature up-stairs-somebody's victim she is: and nobody's to
suffer but herself, the little fool!'
'Yes,' said Raikes. 'Ah! we regret these things in after life!' and he
looked as if he had many gentlemanly burdens of the kind on his
conscience.
'It 's a wonder, to my mind,' remarked the landlady, when she had
placidly surveyed Mr. Raikes, 'how young gals can let some of you men-
folk mislead 'em.'
She turned from him huffily, and addressed Evan:
'The old gentleman is gone, sir. He slept on a chair, breakfasted, and
was off before eight. He left word, as the child was born on his
birthright, he'd provide for it, and pay the mother's bill, unless you
claimed the right. I'm afraid he suspected--what I never, never-no! but
by what I've seen of you--never will believe. For you, I'd say, must be
a gentleman, whatever your company. She asks one favour of you, sir:--
for you to go and let her speak to you once before you go away for good.
She's asleep now, and mustn't be disturbed. Will you do it, by-and-by?
Please to comfort the poor creature, sir.'
Evan consented. I am afraid also it was the landlady's flattering speech
made him, without reckoning his means, add that the young mother and her
child must be considered under his care, and their expenses charged to
him. The landlady was obliged to think him a wealthy as well as a noble
youth, and admiringly curtsied.
Mr. John Raikes and Mr. Evan Harrington then strolled into the air, and
through a long courtyard, with brewhouse and dairy on each side, and a
pleasant smell of baking bread, and dogs winking in the sun, cats at the
corners of doors, satisfied with life, and turkeys parading, and fowls,
strutting cocks, that overset the dignity of Mr. Raikes by awakening his
imitative propensities. Certain white-capped women, who were washing in
a tub, laughed, and one observed: 'He's for all the world like the little
bantam cock stickin' 'self up in a crow against the Spaniar'.' And this,
and the landlady's marked deference to Evan, induced Mr. Raikes
contemptuously to glance at our national blindness to the true diamond,
and worship of the mere plumes in which a person is dressed.
They passed a pretty flower-garden, and entering a smooth-shorn meadow,
beheld the downs beautifully clear under sunlight and slowly-sailing
images of cloud. At the foot of the downs, on a plain of grass, stood a
white booth topped by a flag, which signalled that on that spot Fallow
field and Beckley were contending.
'A singular old gentleman! A very singular old gentleman, that!' Raikes
observed, following an idea that had been occupying him. 'We did wrong
to miss him. We ought to have waylaid him in the morning. Never miss a
chance, Harrington.'
'What chance?' Evan inquired.
'Those old gentlemen are very odd,' Jack pursued, 'very strange. He
wouldn't have judged me by my attire. Admetus' flocks I guard, yet am a
God! Dress is nothing to those old cocks. He's an eccentric. I know
it; I can see it. He 's a corrective of Cudford, who is abhorrent to my
soul. To give you an instance, now, of what those old boys will do--I
remember my father taking me, when I was quite a youngster, to a tavern
he frequented, and we met one night just such an old fellow as this;
and the waiter told us afterwards that he noticed me particularly.
He thought me a very remarkable boy--predicted great things. For some
reason or other my father never took me there again. I remember our
having a Welsh rarebit there for supper, and when the waiter last night
mentioned a rarebit, 'gad he started up before me. I gave chase into my
early youth. However, my father never took me to meet the old fellow
again. I believe it lost me a fortune.'
Evan's thoughts were leaping to the cricket-field, or he would have
condoled with Mr. Raikes for a loss that evidently afflicted him still.
Now, it must be told that the lady's-maid of Mrs. Andrew Cogglesby,
borrowed temporarily by the Countess de Saldar for service at Beckley
Court, had slept in charge of the Countess's boxes at the Green Dragon:
the Countess having told her, with the candour of high-born dames to
their attendants, that it would save expense; and that, besides, Admiral
Combleman, whom she was going to see, or Sir Perkins Ripley (her father's
old friend), whom she should visit if Admiral Combleman was not at his
mansion-both were likely to have full houses, and she could not take them
by storm. An arrangement which left her upwards of twelve hours'
liberty, seemed highly proper to Maria Conning, this lady's-maid, a very
demure young person. She was at her bed-room window, as Evan passed up
the courtyard of the inn, and recognized him immediately. 'Can it be him
they mean that's the low tradesman?' was Maria's mysterious exclamation.
She examined the pair, and added: 'Oh, no. It must be the tall one they
mistook for the small one. But Mr. Harrington ought not to demean
himself by keeping company with such, and my lady should know of it.'
My lady, alighting from the Lymport coach, did know of it, within a few
minutes after Evan had quitted the Green Dragon, and turned pale, as
high-born dames naturally do when they hear of a relative's disregard of
the company he keeps.
'A tailor, my lady!' said scornful Maria; and the Countess jumped and
complained of a pin.
'How did you hear of this, Conning?' she presently asked with composure.
'Oh, my lady, he was tipsy last night, and kept swearing out loud he was
a gentleman.'
'Tipsy!' the Countess murmured in terror. She had heard of inaccessible
truths brought to light by the magic wand of alcohol. Was Evan
intoxicated, and his dreadful secret unlocked last night?
'And who may have told you of this, Conning?' she asked.
Maria plunged into one of the boxes, and was understood to say that
nobody in particular had told her, but that among other flying matters it
had come to her ears.
'My brother is Charity itself,' sighed the Countess. 'He welcomes high
or low.'
'Yes, but, my lady, a, tailor!' Maria repeated, and the Countess,
agreeing with her scorn as she did, could have killed her. At least she
would have liked to run a bodkin into her, and make her scream. In her
position she could not always be Charity itself: nor is this the required
character for a high-born dame: so she rarely affected it.
'Order a fly: discover the direction Mr. Harrington has taken; spare me
further remarks,' she said; and Maria humbly flitted from her presence.
When she was gone, the Countess covered her face with her hands. 'Even
this creature would despise us!' she exclaimed.
The young lady encountered by Mr. Raikes on the road to Fallow field, was
wrong in saying that Beckley would be seen out before the shades of
evening caught up the ball. Not one, but two men of Beckley--the last
two--carried out their bats, cheered handsomely by both parties. The
wickets pitched in the morning, they carried them in again, and plaudits
renewed proved that their fame had not slumbered. To stand before a
field, thoroughly aware that every successful stroke you make is adding
to the hoards of applause in store for you is a joy to your friends, an
exasperation to your foes; I call this an exciting situation, and one as
proud as a man may desire. Then, again, the two last men of an eleven
are twins: they hold one life between them; so that he who dies
extinguishes the other. Your faculties are stirred to their depths. You
become engaged in the noblest of rivalries: in defending your own, you
fight for your comrade's existence. You are assured that the dread of
shame, if not emulation, is making him equally wary and alert.
Behold, then, the two bold men of Beckley fighting to preserve one life.
Under the shadow of the downs they stand, beneath a glorious day, and
before a gallant company. For there are ladies in carriages here, there
are cavaliers; good county names may be pointed out. The sons of first-
rate families are in the two elevens, mingled with the yeomen and whoever
can best do the business. Fallow field and Beckley, without regard to
rank, have drawn upon their muscle and science. One of the bold men of
Beckley at the wickets is Nick Frim, son of the gamekeeper at Beckley
Court; the other is young Tom Copping, son of Squire Copping, of Dox
Hall, in the parish of Beckley. Last year, you must know, Fallow field
beat. That is why Nick Frim, a renowned out-hitter, good to finish a
score brilliantly with a pair of threes, has taken to blocking, and Mr.
Tom cuts with caution, though he loves to steal his runs, and is usually
dismissed by his remarkable cunning.
The field was ringing at a stroke of Nick Frim's, who had lashed out in
his old familiar style at last, and the heavens heard of it, when Evan
came into the circle of spectators. Nick and Tom were stretching from
post to post, might and main. A splendid four was scored. The field
took breath with the heroes; and presume not to doubt that heroes they
are. It is good to win glory for your country; it is also good to win
glory for your village. A Member of Parliament, Sir George Lowton, notes
this emphatically, from the statesman's eminence, to a group of gentlemen
on horseback round a carriage wherein a couple of fair ladies reclined.
'They didn't shout more at the news of the Battle of Waterloo. Now this
is our peculiarity, this absence of extreme centralization. It must be
encouraged. Local jealousies, local rivalries, local triumphs--these are
the strength of the kingdom.'
'If you mean to say that cricket's a ----' the old squire speaking
(Squire Uplift of Fallow field) remembered the saving presences, and
coughed--'good thing, I'm one with ye, Sir George. Encouraged, egad!
They don't want much of that here. Give some of your lean London straws
a strip o' clean grass and a bit o' liberty, and you'll do 'em a
service.'
'What a beautiful hit!' exclaimed one of the ladies, languidly watching
the ascent of the ball.
'Beautiful, d' ye call it?' muttered the squire.
The ball, indeed, was dropping straight into the hands of the long-hit-
off. Instantly a thunder rolled. But it was Beckley that took the
joyful treble--Fallow field the deeply--cursing bass. The long-hit-off,
he who never was known to miss a catch-butter-fingered beast!--he has let
the ball slip through his fingers.
Are there Gods in the air? Fred Linnington, the unfortunate of Fallow
field, with a whole year of unhappy recollection haunting him in
prospect, ere he can retrieve his character--Fred, if he does not accuse
the powers of the sky, protests that he cannot understand it, which means
the same.
Fallow field's defeat--should such be the result of the contest--
he knows now will be laid at his door. Five men who have bowled at the
indomitable Beckleyans think the same. Albeit they are Britons, it
abashes them. They are not the men they were. Their bowling is as the
bowling of babies; and see! Nick, who gave the catch, and pretends he
did it out of commiseration for Fallow field, the ball has flown from his
bat sheer over the booth. If they don't add six to the score, it will be
the fault of their legs. But no: they rest content with a fiver and
cherish their wind.
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