Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet by Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

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And then, more than once or twice either, the thoughts of suicide crossed
me; and I turned it over, and looked at it, and dallied with it, as a last
chance in reserve. And then the thought of Lillian came, and drove away
the fiend. And then the thought of my cousin came, and paralysed me again;
for it told me that one hope was impossible. And then some fresh instance
of misery or oppression forced itself upon me, and made me feel the awful
sacredness of my calling, as a champion of the poor, and the base cowardice
of deserting them for any selfish love of rest. And then I recollected how
I had betrayed my suffering brothers.--How, for the sake of vanity and
patronage, I had consented to hide the truth about their rights--their
wrongs. And so on through weary weeks of moping melancholy--"a
double-minded man, unstable in all his ways?"

At last, Mackaye, who, as I found afterwards, had been watching all along
my altered mood, contrived to worm my secret out of me. I had dreaded, that
whole autumn, having to tell him the truth, because I knew that his first
impulse would be to pay the money instantly out of his own pocket; and my
pride, as well as my sense of justice, revolted at that, and sealed my
lips. But now this fresh discovery--the knowledge that it was not only in
my cousin's power to crush me, but also his interest to do so--had utterly
unmanned me; and after a little innocent and fruitless prevarication, out
came the truth with tears of bitter shame.

The old man pursed up his lips, and, without answering me, opened his table
drawer, and commenced fumbling among accounts and papers.

"No! no! no! best, noblest of friends! I will not burden you with the
fruits of my own vanity and extravagance. I will starve, go to gaol sooner
than take your money. If you offer it me I will leave the house, bag and
baggage, this moment." And I rose to put my threat into execution.

"I havena at present ony sic intention," answered he, deliberately, "seeing
that there's na necessity for paying debits twice owre, when ye ha' the
stampt receipt for them." And he put into my hands, to my astonishment and
rapture, a receipt in full for the money, signed by my cousin.

Not daring to believe my own eyes, I turned it over and over, looked at
it, looked at him--there was nothing but clear, smiling assurance in his
beloved old face, as he twinkled, and winked, and chuckled, and pulled
off his spectacles, and wiped them, and put them on upside-down; and then
relieved himself by rushing at his pipe, and cramming it fiercely with
tobacco till he burst the bowl.

Yes; it was no dream!--the money was paid, and I was free! The sudden
relief was as intolerable as the long burden had been; and, like a prisoner
suddenly loosed from off the rack, my whole spirit seemed suddenly to
collapse, and I sank with my head upon the table to faint even for
gratitude.

* * * * *

But who was my benefactor? Mackaye vouchsafed no answer, but that I "suld
ken better than he." But when he found that I was really utterly at a
loss to whom to attribute the mercy, he assured me, by way of comfort,
that he was just as ignorant as myself; and at last, piecemeal, in his
circumlocutory and cautious Scotch method, informed me, that some six weeks
back he had received an anonymous letter, "a'thegither o' a Belgravian cast
o' phizog," containing a bank note for twenty pounds, and setting forth the
writer's suspicions that I owed my cousin money, and their desire that Mr.
Mackaye, "o' whose uprightness and generosity they were pleased to confess
themselves no that ignorant," should write to George, ascertain the sum,
and pay it without my knowledge, handing over the balance, if any, to me,
when he thought fit--"Sae there's the remnant--aucht pounds, sax shillings,
an' saxpence; tippence being deduckit for expense o' twa letters anent the
same transaction."

"But what sort of handwriting was it?" asked I, almost disregarding the
welcome coin.

"Ou, then--aiblins a man's, aiblins a maid's. He was no chirographosophic
himsel--an' he had na curiosity anent ony sic passage o' aristocratic
romance."

"But what was the postmark of the letter?"

"Why for suld I speired? Gin the writers had been minded to be beknown,
they'd ha' sign't their names upon the document. An' gin they didna sae
intend, wad it be coorteous o' me to gang speiring an' peering ower covers
an' seals?"

"But where is the cover?"

"Ou, then," he went on, with the same provoking coolness, "white paper's o'
geyan use, in various operations o' the domestic economy. Sae I just tare
it up--aiblins for pipe-lights--I canna mind at this time."

"And why," asked I, more vexed and disappointed than I liked to
confess--"why did you not tell me before?"

"How wad I ken that you had need o't? An' verily, I thocht it no that bad
a lesson for ye, to let ye experiment a towmond mair on the precious balms
that break the head--whereby I opine the Psalmist was minded to denote the
delights o' spending borrowed siller."

There was nothing more to be extracted from him; so I was fain to set to
work again (a pleasant compulsion truly) with a free heart, eight pounds in
my pocket, and a brainful of conjectures. Was it the dean? Lord Lynedale?
or was it--could it be--Lillian herself? That thought was so delicious
that I made up my mind, as I had free choice among half a dozen equally
improbable fancies, to determine that the most pleasant should be the true
one; and hoarded the money, which I shrunk from spending as much as I
should from selling her miniature or a lock of her beloved golden hair.
They were a gift from her--a pledge--the first fruits of--I dare not
confess to myself what.

Whereat the reader will smile, and say, not without reason, that I was fast
fitting myself for Bedlam; if, indeed, I had not proved my fitness for it
already, by paying the tailors' debts, instead of my own, with the ten
pounds which Farmer Porter had given me. I am not sure that he would not be
correct; but so I did, and so I suffered.

CHAPTER XXV.

A TRUE NOBLEMAN.

At last my list of subscribers was completed, and my poems actually in
the press. Oh! the childish joy with which I fondled my first set of
proofs! And how much finer the words looked in print than they ever
did in manuscript!--One took in the idea of a whole page so charmingly
at a glance, instead of having to feel one's way through line after
line, and sentence after sentence.--There was only one drawback to my
happiness--Mackaye did not seem to sympathize with it. He had never
grumbled at what I considered, and still do consider, my cardinal offence,
the omission of the strong political passages; he seemed, on the contrary,
in his inexplicable waywardness, to be rather pleased at it than otherwise.
It was my publishing at all at which he growled.

"Ech," he said, "owre young to marry, is owre young to write; but it's the
way o' these puir distractit times. Nae chick can find a grain o' corn, but
oot he rins cackling wi' the shell on his head, to tell it to a' the warld,
as if there was never barley grown on the face o' the earth before. I
wonder whether Isaiah began to write before his beard was grown, or Dawvid
either? He had mony a long year o' shepherding an' moss-trooping, an'
rugging an' riving i' the wilderness, I'll warrant, afore he got thae gran'
lyrics o' his oot o' him. Ye might tak example too, gin ye were minded, by
Moses, the man o' God, that was joost forty years at the learning o' the
Egyptians, afore he thocht gude to come forward into public life, an'
then fun' to his gran' surprise, I warrant, that he'd begun forty years
too sune--an' then had forty years mair, after that, o' marching an'
law-giving, an' bearing the burdens o' the people, before he turned poet."

"Poet, sir! I never saw Moses in that light before."

"Then ye'll just read the 90th Psalm--'the prayer o' Moses, the man o'
God'--the grandest piece o' lyric, to my taste, that I ever heard o' on the
face o' God's earth, an' see what a man can write that'll have the patience
to wait a century or twa before he rins to the publisher's. I gie ye up
fra' this moment; the letting out o' ink is like the letting out o' waters,
or the eating o' opium, or the getting up at public meetings.--When a man
begins he canna stop. There's nae mair enslaving lust o' the flesh under
the heaven than that same _furor scribendi_, as the Latins hae it."

But at last my poems were printed, and bound, and actually published, and
I sat staring at a book of my own making, and wondering how it ever got
into being! And what was more, the book "took," and sold, and was reviewed
in People's journals, and in newspapers; and Mackaye himself relaxed
into a grin, when his oracle, the _Spectator_, the only honest paper,
according to him, on the face of the earth, condescended, after asserting
its impartiality by two or three searching sarcasms, to dismiss me,
grimly-benignant, with a paternal pat on the shoulder. Yes--I was a real
live author at last, and signed myself, by special request, in the * * * *
Magazine, as "the author of Songs of the Highways." At last it struck me,
and Mackaye too, who, however he hated flunkeydom, never overlooked an act
of discourtesy, that it would be right for me to call upon the dean, and
thank him formally for all the real kindness he had shown me. So I went to
the handsome house off Harley-street, and was shown into his study, and saw
my own book lying on the table, and was welcomed by the good old man, and
congratulated on my success, and asked if I did not see my own wisdom in
"yielding to more experienced opinions than my own, and submitting to a
censorship which, however severe it might have appeared at first, was, as
the event proved, benignant both in its intentions and effects?"

And then I was asked, even I, to breakfast there the next morning. And I
went, and found no one there but some scientific gentlemen, to whom I was
introduced as "the young man whose poems we were talking of last night."
And Lillian sat at the head of the table, and poured out the coffee and
tea. And between ecstasy at seeing her, and the intense relief of not
finding my dreaded and now hated cousin there, I sat in a delirium of
silent joy, stealing glances at her beauty, and listening with all my ears
to the conversation, which turned upon the new-married couple.

I heard endless praises, to which I could not but assent in silence, of
Lord Ellerton's perfections. His very personal appearance had been enough
to captivate my fancy; and then they went on to talk of his magnificent
philanthropic schemes, and his deep sense, of the high duties of a
landlord; and how, finding himself, at his father's death, the possessor of
two vast but neglected estates, he had sold one in order to be able to do
justice to the other, instead of laying house to house, and field to field,
like most of his compeers, "till he stood alone in the land, and there was
no place left;" and how he had lowered his rents, even though it had forced
him to put down the ancestral pack of hounds, and live in a corner of the
old castle; and how he was draining, claying, breaking up old moorlands,
and building churches, and endowing schools, and improving cottages;
and how he was expelling the old ignorant bankrupt race of farmers, and
advertising everywhere for men of capital, and science, and character, who
would have courage to cultivate flax and silk, and try every species of
experiment; and how he had one scientific farmer after another, staying in
his house as a friend; and how he had numbers of his books rebound in plain
covers, that he might lend them to every one on his estate who wished to
read them; and how he had thrown open his picture gallery, not only to the
inhabitants of the neighbouring town, but what (strange to say) seemed to
strike the party as still more remarkable, to the labourers of his own
village; and how he was at that moment busy transforming an old unoccupied
manor-house into a great associate farm, in which all the labourers were
to live under one roof, with a common kitchen and dining-hall, clerks and
superintendents, whom they were to choose, subject only to his approval,
and all of them, from the least to the greatest, have their own interest
in the farm, and be paid by percentage on the profits; and how he had one
of the first political economists of the day staying with him, in order to
work out for him tables of proportionate remuneration, applicable to such
an agricultural establishment; and how, too, he was giving the spade-labour
system a fair-trial, by laying out small cottage-farms, on rocky knolls and
sides of glens, too steep to be cultivated by the plough; and was locating
on them the most intelligent artisans whom he could draft from the
manufacturing town hard by--

And at that notion, my brain grew giddy with the hope of seeing myself one
day in one of those same cottages, tilling the earth, under God's sky, and
perhaps--. And then a whole cloud-world of love, freedom, fame, simple,
graceful country luxury steamed up across my brain, to end--not, like the
man's in the "Arabian Nights," in my kicking over the tray of China, which
formed the base-point of my inverted pyramid of hope--but in my finding the
contents of my plate deposited in my lap, while I was gazing fixedly at
Lillian.

I must say for myself, though, that such accidents happened seldom; whether
it was bashfulness, or the tact which generally, I believe, accompanies
a weak and nervous body, and an active mind; or whether it was that I
possessed enough relationship to the monkey-tribe to make me a first-rate
mimic, I used to get tolerably well through on these occasions, by acting
on the golden rule of never doing anything which I had not seen some one
else do first--a rule which never brought me into any greater scrape than
swallowing something intolerably hot, sour, and nasty (whereof I never
discovered the name), because I had seen the dean do so a moment before.

But one thing struck me through the whole of this conversation--the way in
which the new-married Lady Ellerton was spoken of, as aiding, encouraging,
originating--a helpmeet, if not an oracular guide, for her husband--in all
these noble plans. She had already acquainted herself with every woman on
the estate; she was the dispenser, not merely of alms--for those seemed a
disagreeable necessity, from which Lord Ellerton was anxious to escape as
soon as possible--but of advice, comfort, and encouragement. She not only
visited the sick, and taught in the schools--avocations which, thank God,
I have reason to believe are matters of course, not only in the families
of clergymen, but those of most squires and noblemen, when they reside on
their estates--but seemed, from the hints which I gathered, to be utterly
devoted, body and soul, to the welfare of the dwellers on her husband's
land.

"I had no notion," I dared at last to remark, humbly enough, "that
Miss--Lady Ellerton cared so much for the people."

"Really! One feels inclined sometimes to wish that she cared for anything
beside them," said Lillian, half to her father and half to me.

This gave a fresh shake to my estimate of that remarkable woman's
character. But still, who could be prouder, more imperious, more abrupt in
manner, harsh, even to the very verge of good-breeding? (for I had learnt
what good-breeding was, from the debating society as well as from the
drawing-room;) and, above all, had she not tried to keep me from Lillian?
But these cloudy thoughts melted rapidly away in that sunny atmosphere of
success and happiness, and I went home as merry as a bird, and wrote all
the morning more gracefully and sportively, as I fancied, than I had ever
yet done.

But my bliss did not end here. In a week or so, behold one morning a
note--written, indeed, by the dean--but directed in Lillian's own hand,
inviting me to come there to tea, that I might see a few, of the literary
characters of the day.

I covered the envelope with kisses, and thrust it next my fluttering heart.
I then proudly showed the note to Mackaye. He looked pleased, yet pensive,
and then broke out with a fresh adaptation of his favourite song,

--and shovel hats and a' that--
A man's a man for a' that.

"The auld gentleman is a man and a gentleman; an' has made a verra
courteous, an' weel considerit move, gin ye ha' the sense to profit by it,
an' no turn it to yer ain destruction."

"Destruction?"

"Ay--that's the word, an' nothing less, laddie!"

And he went into the outer shop, and returned with a volume of Bulwer's
"Ernest Maltravers."

"What! are you a novel reader, Mr. Mackaye?"

"How do ye ken what I may ha' thocht gude to read in my time? Yell be
pleased the noo to sit down an' begin at that page--an read, mark, learn,
an' inwardly digest, the history of Castruccio Cesarini--an' the gude God
gie ye grace to lay the same to heart."

I read that fearful story; and my heart sunk, and my eyes were full of
tears, long ere I had finished it. Suddenly I looked up at Mackaye, half
angry at the pointed allusion to my own case.

The old man was watching me intently, with folded hands, and a smile of
solemn interest and affection worthy of Socrates himself. He turned his
head as I looked up, but his lips kept moving. I fancied, I know not why,
that he was praying for me.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE TRIUMPHANT AUTHOR.

So to the party I went, and had the delight of seeing and hearing the men
with whose names I had been long acquainted, as the leaders of scientific
discovery in this wondrous age; and more than one poet, too, over whose
works I had gloated, whom I had worshipped in secret. Intense was the
pleasure of now realizing to myself, as living men, wearing the same flesh
and blood as myself, the names which had been to me mythic ideas. Lillian
was there among them, more exquisite than ever; but even she at first
attracted my eyes and thoughts less than did the truly great men around
her. I hung on every word they spoke, I watched every gesture, as if they
must have some deep significance; the very way in which they drank their
coffee was a matter of interest to me. I was almost disappointed to see
them eat and chat like common men. I expected that pearls and diamonds
would drop from their lips, as they did from those of the girl, in the
fairy-tale, every time they opened their mouths; and certainly, the
conversation that evening was a new world to me--though I could only, of
course, be a listener. Indeed, I wished to be nothing more. I felt that
I was taking my place there among the holy guild of authors--that I too,
however humbly, had a thing to say, and had said it; and I was content to
sit on the lowest step of the literary temple, without envy for those elder
and more practised priests of wisdom, who had earned by long labour the
freedom of the inner shrine. I should have been quite happy enough standing
there, looking and listening--but I was at last forced to come forward.
Lillian was busy chatting with grave, grey-headed men, who seemed as ready
to flirt, and pet and admire the lovely little fairy, as if they had been
as young and gay as herself. It was enough for me to see her appreciated
and admired. I loved them for smiling on her, for handing her from her seat
to the piano with reverent courtesy: gladly would I have taken their place:
I was content, however, to be only a spectator; for it was not my rank, but
my youth, I was glad to fancy, which denied me that blissful honour. But
as she sang, I could not help stealing up to the piano; and, feasting my
greedy eyes with every motion of those delicious lips, listen and listen,
entranced, and living only in that melody.

Suddenly, after singing two or three songs, she began fingering the keys,
and struck into an old air, wild and plaintive, rising and falling like the
swell of an Æolian harp upon a distant breeze.

"Ah! now," she said, "if I could get words for that! What an exquisite
lament somebody might write to it, if they could only thoroughly take in
the feeling and meaning of it."

"Perhaps," I said, humbly, "that is the only way to write songs--to let
some air get possession of ones whole soul, and gradually inspire the words
for itself; as the old Hebrew prophets had music played before them, to
wake up the prophetic spirit within them."

She looked up, just as if she had been unconscious of my presence till that
moment.

"Ah! Mr. Locke!--well, if you understand my meaning so thoroughly, perhaps
you will try and write some words for me."

"I am afraid that I do not enter sufficiently into the meaning of the air."

"Oh! then, listen while I play it over again. I am sure _you_ ought to
appreciate anything so sad and tender."

And she did play it, to my delight, over again, even more gracefully and
carefully than before--making the inarticulate sounds speak a mysterious
train of thoughts and emotions. It is strange how little real intellect, in
women especially, is required for an exquisite appreciation of the beauties
of music--perhaps, because it appeals to the heart and not the head.

She rose and left the piano, saying archly, "Now, don't forget your
promise;" and I, poor fool, my sunlight suddenly withdrawn, began torturing
my brains on the instant to think of a subject.

As it happened, my attention was caught by hearing two gentlemen close to
me discuss a beautiful sketch by Copley Fielding, if I recollect rightly,
which hung on the wall--a wild waste of tidal sands, with here and there a
line of stake-nets fluttering in the wind--a grey shroud of rain sweeping
up from the westward, through which low red cliffs glowed dimly in the rays
of the setting sun--a train of horses and cattle splashing slowly through
shallow desolate pools and creeks, their wet, red, and black hides
glittering in one long line of level light.

They seemed thoroughly conversant with art; and as I listened to their
criticisms, I learnt more in five minutes about the characteristics of
a really true and good picture, and about the perfection to which our
unrivalled English landscape-painters have attained, than I ever did from
all the books and criticisms which I had read. One of them had seen the
spot represented, at the mouth of the Dee, and began telling wild stories
of salmon-fishing, and wildfowl shooting--and then a tale of a girl, who,
in bringing her father's cattle home across the sands, had been caught by
a sudden flow of the tide, and found next day a corpse hanging among the
stake-nets far below. The tragedy, the art of the picture, the simple,
dreary grandeur of the scenery, took possession of me; and I stood gazing
a long time, and fancying myself pacing the sands, and wondering whether
there were shells upon it--I had often longed for once only in my life to
pick up shells--when Lady Ellerton, whom I had not before noticed, woke me
from my reverie.

I took the liberty of asking after Lord Ellerton.

"He is not in town--he has stayed behind for one day to attend a great
meeting of his tenantry--you will see the account in the papers to-morrow
morning--he comes to-morrow." And as she spoke her whole face and figure
seemed to glow and heave, in spite of herself, with pride and affection.

"And now, come with me, Mr. Locke--the * * * ambassador wishes to speak to
you."

"The * * * ambassador!" I said, startled; for let us be as democratic as we
will, there is something in the name of great officers which awes, perhaps
rightly, for the moment, and it requires a strong act of self-possession
to recollect that "a man's a man for a' that." Besides, I knew enough of
the great man in question to stand in awe of him for his own sake, having
lately read a panegyric of him, which perfectly astounded me, by its
description of his piety and virtue, his family affection, and patriarchal
simplicity, the liberality and philanthropy of all his measures, and the
enormous intellectual powers, and stores of learning, which enabled him,
with the affairs of Europe on his shoulders, to write deeply and originally
on the most abstruse questions of theology, history, and science.

Lady Ellerton seemed to guess my thoughts. "You need not be afraid of
meeting an aristocrat, in the vulgar sense of the word. You will see one
who, once perhaps as unknown as yourself, has risen by virtue and wisdom to
guide the destinies of nations--and shall I tell you how? Not by fawning
and yielding to the fancies of the great; not by compromising his own
convictions to suit their prejudices--"

I felt the rebuke, but she went on--

"He owes his greatness to having dared, one evening, to contradict a
crown-prince to his face, and fairly conquer him in argument, and thereby
bind the truly royal heart to him for ever."

"There are few scions of royalty to whose favour that would be a likely
path."

"True; and therefore the greater honour is due to the young student who
could contradict, and the prince who could be contradicted."