Despair's Last Journey Part 11

'To be sure,' said the old man, 'to be sure. It's tight packed, but it's simple as A B C.'

There were questions Paul could not answer, and he and the old man puzzled them out together. They drew closer and closer. The boy dared to reveal his mind, and the father began to respect his opinion. By the time the warm weather was round again they were fast friends. They tramped up and down the path of the neglected garden arm-in-arm, and talked of literature and politics and the world at large. Paul had dreams, and sometimes he gave his father a glimpse of them. Armstrong preached humility.

'L'arn, my lad,' he would say, almost sternly, 'l'arn before ye try to teach.'

Paul had turned public instructor already, but that was his secret There was a sort of treason in it, for Armstrong's rival, a young and pus.h.i.+ng tradesman, had started a weekly paper, and Paul was an anonymous contributor to its pages. This journal was called the _Barfield Advertiser, and Quarry-moor, Church Vale, and Heydon Hay Gazette_; but it was satirically known in the Armstrong household as the _Crusher_, and its leading articles (which were certainly rather turgid and pompous) were food for weekly mirth. But one day this was changed.

'Why, William,' cried Mrs. Armstrong, 'this fellow's turned quite sensible. You might ha' wrote this yourself. It's simply nayther more nor less than you was sayin' last Wednesday at this very table.'

Paul's coffee went the wrong way, and his cough caused a momentary diversion. But when d.i.c.k had vigorously thumped him on the back, and he had resumed his seat at table, Armstrong read the article aloud.

'Ay, ay!' he said at the close, 'it's certainly my own opinion, and vary cleanly put.'

Paul's coffee went the wrong way again, and again d.i.c.k thumped him on the back. When the paper had gone the round of the household the anonymous writer stole it, and carried it, neatly folded beneath his waistcoat, to the office. He knew it by heart already, but he read it insatiably over and over again. He was in print, and to be in print for the first time is to experience as fine a delirium as is to be found in love or liquor. The typed column ravished his senses, and the editorial 'we' looked imperial. He was 'we' in spite of s.h.i.+rt-sleeves and ink-smeared ap.r.o.n of herden. In those days the _Times_ could uproot a Ministry, but its editor in his proudest hour would have been a dwarf if he had measured himself by Paul's self-appreciation. Sweet are the uses of a boy's vanity, sweeter than honey and the honeycomb.

The dreamer in his mountain eyrie felt his heart warm with a sort of fatherly pity over these b.u.mpkin raptures. The lad blows a bubble of foolery, and it glitters and floats and bursts, and who is the worse for it? The man carves folly in bra.s.s, and breaks his head on his own monument; or forges it in steel, and stabs his own heart with it. The vanities of youth are yeast in wholesome ale. The follies of later life are mildew in the cask. The lad who never tasted Paul's intoxication may make a worthy citizen, but he will never set the Thames afire.

Paul went on writing, and thundered from the editorial pulpit weekly. He gave the _Crusher_ a policy. Castle Barfield was to be a borough at the next redistribution of seats. Its watchwords were 'Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform.' It was to uphold the traditions of Manchester in a curious blend with the philosophy, or the want of it, of Thomas Carlyle. It a.s.sailed the Vicar of All Saints' for the introduction of a surpliced choir, and it showed a bared arm and a clenched fist to Popery.

The Jovian wielder of the _Crusher's_ lightnings got used to being discussed at the Sat.u.r.day morning table, and encountered praise and blame there with an equal countenance. In his own unplummeted depths he was Scott before the discovery of the authors.h.i.+p of the Waverley series; he was Junius; he was S. G. O. And not a soul ever guessed at the truth, for just as Paul had resolved to reveal his ident.i.ty and claim his fame the _Crusher_ died.

Then for a long time he was voiceless, and, having no paper balloon to float him, he went about in his own thoughts, quite like a common person. A year later, routing out the whole series of printed articles from one of his jackdaw hiding-places, he was inspired by an intense disdain, and burned them in the office stove.

All the time the world he lived in was the world he took least heed of. Until Ralston crossed him--Ralston, his man of men, and king, and deity--the only real creature was the gray old man who had begotten him. Father and son had grown to a curious sympathy, in which age never domineered because of age, or youth presumed because of youth. Armstrong the elder was a poet, though he had never printed a line; and he and Paul brought their verses to each other. They used to print at times the productions of the local bard, and their first bond of genial and equal laughter (which is one of the best bonds in life) came of their joint reading of one of his effusions. Paul had given it the dignity of type.

Armstrong was his own proof-reader, and Paul read the MS. aloud, whilst his father, with balanced pen, ticked off the lines. They were headed 'Lines on a Walk I once took in the Country,' and they opened thus:

'It was upon a day in May When through the field I took my way, It was delightful for to see The sheep and lambs--they did agree.

'And as I went forth on that day I met a stile within my way, That stile which did give rest to me Again I may not no more see.

'As on my way I then did trod, The lark did roar his song to G.o.d.'

There they laughed, with tears, for this was not a jest of anybody's purposed making, but a pinch from Nature's pepper-castor, and it tickled the lungs to madness.

'Paul, lad,' said Armstrong, coming to a sudden serious end of laughter, and wiping his eyes, 'it's not an ungentle heart that finds it delightful to see the fleecy, silly people o' the fields in harmony. And the reflection on the stile's a fine bit o' pathetics. "I've been happy there," says the poor ignorance; "and I may never see it more." It's the etairnal hauntin' thoct o' man in all ages. "We've no abiding city here." "The gra.s.s withereth, the flower fadeth." "Never, never more,"

says poor Poe's raven. Listen, m'n! Ye'll hear Shakespeare's immortal thunder. The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces dissolve with the great globe itself and all that it inherits. It's all there, Paul. It's in the hiccoughing throat of him. Puir felly! Well just put him into decent English, and see that naebody else shall laugh at him.'

So they trimmed the local bard, and made him sober, and even mildly sweet; and when, with their joint amendments, they sent the poem home, the bard refused to be edited, declined the parcel, and took his trade elsewhere.

But the tinkering of the poor verses brought Paul and his father finally together, and from that hour onward they were friends.

CHAPTER V

And now the mind of the Exile turned to the episode of Norah MacMulty--grotesque, pitiable, laughable.

Paul had pssed his seventeenth birthday, and reckoned himself a man.

He was in love again, but tentatively. He had read 'Don Juan,' and had learned a thing or two. He conceived that he had rubbed off the first soft bloom of youth, and the idea, natural to his time of life, that he was aged and experienced had taken full hold of him.

He was not wholly certain that he adored the pretty girl at the bonnet-shop. He had never spoken to her, for one thing, and had only seen her from a distance, but she did well enough to moon about, and made an excellent peg to hang verses on.

He had been away on a lovely summer evening's ramble into the quiet of the country. He had been verse-making or verse-polis.h.i.+ng, and was in a high state of mental exaltation when he reached the darkened main street of the town about ten o'clock. He turned the corner, and walked straight into the arms of a woman, who hugged him with a drunken ardour. Her breath was fiery with gin, and the coa.r.s.ely-sweet scent of it filled him with an impulse of loathing.

'Let go,' said Paul

'Deed I'll not let go,' the woman answered, in a drunken voice. 'Ye're just sent here be Providence to see a poor lonely little craychure home.'

'Let go,' said Paul again; but she clung and laughed, and, in a sudden spasm of downright horror, he put out more strength than he guessed, and wrenched himself free. The woman tottered backwards, swayed for an instant, and then fell. The back of her head came into sharp contact with the corner of the wall. She lay quite still, and Paul grew frightened. 'Here,' he said, 'take my hand. Let me help you up.' He had not expected her to answer, but her continued silence seemed dreadful.

He kneeled to look closely into her face. She was quite young--not more than two or three and twenty at the outside--and she had a quant.i.ty of light auburn hair, which, though untidy, had a soft beauty of its own.

Her eyes were closed, and her face was white. 'Now, don't lie there pretending to be killed,' said Paul, in an unsteady voice. She made no movement, and he rose and looked about him in dismay.

There was not a creature in the street, and the public lamps were never lighted in the summer-time. A long way off the windows of a gin-shop cast a light upon the road, and nearer, on the opposite side, a red lamp burned. With a lingering glance of fear and pity at the rec.u.mbent figure, Paul sped towards the red lamp as fast as he could lift a leg.

In his agitation he gave such a tug at the bell that it clanged like a fire-alarm. The doctor's a.s.sistant, a das.h.i.+ng young gentleman whom Paul knew from afar, and who was remarkable to him chiefly for an expensive taste in clothing, came briskly to the door.

'There's a woman at the corner,' said Paul, 'badly hurt; I thought it best to let you know.'

The a.s.sistant s.n.a.t.c.hed a hat from the hall table, and came out at once.

'Where is she?'

Paul pointed, and they ran together. The a.s.sistant had the quicker turn of speed, and reached the corner first. He was kneeling beside the woman when Paul reached him.

'Got a handkerchief?' he asked

Paul lugged half a square yard of turkey-red cotton from his pocket.

'That's the ticket,' said the a.s.sistant. He folded the handkerchief..

'Now, hold her head up whilst I get this under it.'

Paul obeyed again, but the hair was all in a warm wet mesh of blood.

'What are you shaking at?' the a.s.sistant asked him. 'You're a pretty poor plucked un,' he added, as he tied the bandage tight across the woman's forehead.

'I'm not used to it,' said Paul, choking with nausea and pity.

'That's pretty evident,' returned the other. 'Now, get her shawl round her head whilst I hold her up. That'll do. We must get her down to the surgery. Take her by her shoulders; there. Get your arms well under her.

Heave ho! Wait a minute till I settle her dress and get a good hold of her knees. Upsy daisy; march!'

They went staggeringly, not because of the weight, but by reason of the giddiness which a.s.sailed Paul. He thought it had suddenly grown foggy, for there was a mist between him and all the dimly visible objects of the night There were coloured sparks in the mist by-and-by, and when once they had got their burden through the open hall and had laid it on a plain straight couch in the surgery, Paul was glad to sit down uninvited.

'Take a sniff at that,' said the a.s.sistant, pressing an un-stoppered bottle into his hand.

Paul obeyed him. The pungent ammonia brought the tears to his eyes and took his breath away, but it dispersed the fog and stilled the wheel which had been whirling in his head The a.s.sistant had taken off his coat and rolled up his s.h.i.+rtsleeves, and was going about his task with professional dexterity and coolness.

'How did this happen?' he asked.

He was Paul's senior by three years at most, but he had as magisterial and a.s.sured a manner as if he had been fifty.