John Halifax, Gentleman Part 24

CHAPTER IX

"Well done, Phineas--to walk round the garden without once resting! now I call that grand, after an individual has been ill a month. However, you must calm your superabundant energies, and be quiet."

I was not unwilling, for I still felt very weak. But sickness did not now take that heavy, overpowering grip of me, mind and body, that it once used to do. It never did when John was by. He gave me strength, mentally and physically. He was life and health to me, with his brave cheerfulness--his way of turning all minor troubles into pleasantries, till they seemed to break and vanish away, sparkling, like the foam on the top of the wave. Yet, all the while one knew well that he could meet any great evil as gallantly as a good s.h.i.+p meets a heavy sea--breasting it, plunging through it, or riding over it, as only a good s.h.i.+p can.

When I recovered--just a month after the bread-riot, and that month was a great triumph to John's kind care--I felt that if I always had him beside me I should never be ill any more; I said as much, in a laughing sort of way.

"Very well; I shall keep you to that bargain. Now, sit down; listen to the newspaper, and improve your mind as to what the world is doing. It ought to be doing something, with the new century it began this year.

Did it not seem very odd at first to have to write '1800'?"

"John, what a capital hand you write now!"

"Do I! That's somebody's credit. Do you remember my first lesson on the top of the Mythe?"

"I wonder what has become of those two gentlemen?"

"Oh! did you never hear? Young Mr. Brithwood is the 'squire now. He married, last month, Lady Somebody Something, a fine lady from abroad."

"And Mr. March--what of him?"

"I haven't the least idea. Come now, shall I read the paper?"

He read well, and I liked to listen to him. It was, I remember, something about "the s.p.a.cious new quadrangles, to be called Russell and Tavistock Squares, with elegantly laid out nursery-grounds adjoining."

"It must be a fine place, London."

"Ay; I should like to see it. Your father says, perhaps he shall have to send me, this winter, on business--won't that be fine? If only you would go too."

I shook my head. I had the strongest disinclination to stir from my quiet home, which now held within it, or about it, all I wished for and all I loved. It seemed as if any change must be to something worse.

"Nevertheless, you must have a change. Doctor Jessop insists upon it.

Here have I been beating up and down the country for a week past--'Adventures in Search of a Country Residence'--and, do you know, I think I've found one at last. Shouldn't you like to hear about it?"

I a.s.sented, to please him.

"Such a nice, nice place, on the slope of Enderley Hill. A cottage--Rose Cottage--for it's all in a bush of cl.u.s.ter-roses, up to the very roof."

"Where is Enderley?"

"Did you never hear of Enderley Flat, the highest tableland in England?

Such a fresh, free, breezy spot--how the wind sweeps over it! I can feel it in my face still."

And even the description was refres.h.i.+ng, this heavy, sultry day, with not a breath of air moving across the level valley.

"Shouldn't you like to live on a hill-side, to be at the top of everything, overlooking everything? Well, that's Enderley: the village lies just under the brow of the Flat."

"Is there a village?"

"A dozen cottages or so, at each door of which half-a-dozen white little heads and a dozen round eyes appeared staring at me. But oh, the blessed quiet and solitude of the place! No fights in filthy alleys! no tan-yards--I mean"--he added, correcting himself--"it's a thorough country spot; and I like the country better than the town."

"Do you, still? Would you really like to take to the 'shepherd's life and state,' upon which my namesake here is so eloquent? Let us see what he says."

And from the handful of books that usually lay strewn about wherever we two sat, I took up one he had lately got, with no small pains I was sure, and had had bound in its own proper colour, and presented it to me--"The Purple Island," and "Sicelides," of Phineas Fletcher. People seldom read this wise, tender, and sweet-voiced old fellow now; so I will even copy the verses I found for John to read.

"Here is the place. Thyrsis is just ending his 'broken lay.'

'Lest that the stealing night his later song might stay--'"

"Stop a minute," interrupted John. "Apropos of 'stealing night,' the sun is already down below the yew-hedge. Are you cold?"

"Not a bit of it."

"Then we'll begin:--

'Thrice, oh, thrice happy, shepherd's life and state: When courts are happiness, unhappy p.a.w.ns!'

That's not clear," said John, laying down the book. "Now I do like poetry to be intelligible. A poet ought to see things more widely, and express them more vividly, than ordinary folk."

"Don't you perceive--he means the p.a.w.ns on the chess-board--the common people."

"Phineas, don't say the common people--I'm a common person myself. But to continue:--

'His cottage low, and safely humble gate, Shuts out proud Fortune, with her scorns and fawns: No feared treason breaks his quiet sleep.

Singing all day, his flocks he learns to keep, Himself as innocent as are his quiet sheep.'

(Not many sheep at Enderley, I fancy; the Flat chiefly abounds in donkeys. Well--)

'No Serian worms he knows, that with their thread, Drew out their silken lives--nor silken pride--'

Which reminds me that--"

"David, how can you make me laugh at our reverend ancestor in this way?

I'm ashamed of you."

"Only let me tell you this one fact--very interesting, you'll allow--that I saw a silken gown hanging up in the kitchen at Rose Cottage. Now, though Mrs. Tod is a decent, comely woman, I don't think it belonged to her."

"She may have lodgers."

"I think she said she had--an old gentleman--but HE wouldn't wear a silken gown."

"His wife might. Now, do go on reading."

"Certainly; I only wish to draw a parallel between Thyrsis and ourselves in our future summer life at Enderley. So the old gentleman's wife may appropriate the 'silken pride,' while we emulate the shepherd.

'His lambs' warm fleece well fits his little need--'

I wear a tolerably good coat now, don't I, Phineas?"