The Last of the Foresters Part 70

"Yes, sir! the pangs of a guilty conscience will not suffer him to sleep; and death only will end his miserable existence."

Which certainly had the air of an undoubted truth.

"See!" said Mr. Roundjacket, relapsing into the pathetic--"see how my unfortunate offspring has been mangled--maimed--a statutory offence--mayhem!--see Bacon's Abridgment, page ----; but I wander.

See," continued Roundjacket, "that is all that is left of the original."

"Yes, sir," said Verty.

"The very first line is unrecognizable."

And Roundjacket put his handkerchief to his eyes and sniffled.

Verty tried not to smile.

"It's very unfortunate, sir," he said; "but perhaps the paper--I mean yours--was not written plain."

"Written plain!" cried Roundjacket, suppressing his feelings.

"Yes, sir--the ma.n.u.script, I believe, it is called."

"Well, no--it was not written plain--of course not."

Verty looked surprised, spite of his own suggestion.

"I thought you wrote as plain as print, Mr. Roundjacket."

"I do."

"Why then--?"

"Not do so in the present instance, do you mean?"

"Yes, sir."

"Young man," said Roundjacket, solemnly, "it is easy to see that you are shockingly ignorant of the proprieties of life--or you never would have suggested such a thing."

"What thing, sir?"

"Plain writing in an author."

"Oh!" said Verty.

"Mark me," continued Roundjacket, with affecting gravity, "the unmistakable evidence of greatness is not the brilliant eye, the fine forehead, or the firm-set lip; neither is the 'lion port' or n.o.ble carriage--it is far more simple, sir. It lies wholly in the hand-writing."

"Possible, sir?"

"Yes; highly probable even. No great man ever yet wrote legibly, and I hold that such a thing is conclusive evidence of a narrowness of intellect. Great men uniformly use a species of scrawl which people have to study, sir, before they can understand. Like the Oracles of Delphos, the ma.n.u.script is mysterious because it is profound. My own belief, sir, is, that Homer's ma.n.u.script--if he had one, which I doubt--resembled a sheet of paper over which a fly with inked feet has crawled;--and you may imagine, sir, the respect, and, I may add, the labor, of the old Greek type-setters in publis.h.i.+ng the first edition of the Iliad."

This dissertation had the effect of diverting Mr. Roundjacket's mind temporarily from his affliction; but his grief soon returned in full force again.

"To think it!" he cried, flouris.h.i.+ng his ruler, and ready to weep,--"to think that after taking all the trouble to disguise my clear running hand, and write as became an author of my standing--in hieroglyphics--to think that this should be the result of all my trouble."

Roundjacket sniffed.

"Don't be sorry," said Verty.

"I cannot refrain, sir," said Roundjacket, in a tone of acute agony; "it is more than I can bear. See here, sir, again: 'High Jove! great father!' is changed into 'By Jove, I'd rather!' and so on. Sir, it is more than humanity can bear; I feel that I shall sink under it. I shall be in bed to-morrow, sir--after all my trouble--'By Jove!'"

With this despairing exclamation Roundjacket let his head fall, overcome with grief, upon his desk, requesting not to be spoken to, after the wont of great unfortunates.

Verty seemed to feel great respect for this overwhelming grief; at least he did not utter any commonplace consolations. He also leaned upon his desk, and his idle hands traced idle lines upon the paper before him.

His dreamy eyes, full of quiet pleasure, fixed themselves upon the far distance--he was thinking of Redbud.

He finally aroused himself, however, and began to work. Half an hour, an hour, another hour pa.s.sed--Verty was breaking himself into the traces; he had finished his work.

He rose, and going to Mr. Rushton's door, knocked and opened it. The lawyer was not there; Verty looked round--his companion was absorbed in writing.

Verty sat down in the lawyer's arm-chair.

CHAPTER L.

HOW VERTY DISCOVERED A PORTRAIT, AND WHAT ENSUED.

For some time the young man remained motionless and silent, thinking of Redbud, and smiling with the old proverbial delight of lovers, as the memory of her bright sweet face, and kind eyes, came to his thoughts.

There was now no longer any doubt, a.s.suredly, that he was what was called "in love" with Redbud; Verty said as much to himself, and we need not add that when this circ.u.mstance occurs, the individual who comes to such conclusion, is no longer his own master, or the master of his heart, which is gone from him.

For as it is observable that persons often imagine themselves affected with material ailments when there is no good ground for such a supposition; so, on the other hand, is it true that those who labor under the disease of love are the last to know their own condition.

As Verty, therefore, came to the conclusion that he must be "in love"

with Redbud, we may form a tolerably correct idea of the actual fact.

Why should he not love her? Redbud was so kind, so tender; her large liquid eyes were instinct with such deep truth and goodness; in her fresh, frank face there was such radiant joy, and purity, and love!

Surely, a mortal sin to do otherwise than love her! And Verty congratulated himself on exemption from this sad sin of omission.

He sat thus, looking with his dreamy smile through the window, across which the shadows of the autumn trees flitted and played. Listlessly he took up a pen, nibbed the feather with his old odd smile, and began to scrawl absently on the sheet of paper lying before him.

The words he wrote there thus unconsciously, were some which he had heard Redbud utter with her soft, kind voice, which dwelt in his memory.

"Trust in G.o.d."

This Verty wrote, scarcely knowing he did so; then he threw down the pen, and reclining in the old lawyer's study chair, fell into one of those Indian reveries which the dreamy forests seem to have taught the red men.

As the young man thus reclined in the old walnut chair, clad in his forest costume, with his profuse tangled curls, and smiling lips, and half-closed eyes, bathed in the vagrant gleams of golden sunlight, even Monsignor might have thought the picture not unworthy of his pencil. But he could not have reproduced the wild, fine picture; for in Verty's face was that dim and dreamy smile which neither pencil nor words can describe on paper or canvas.

At last he roused himself, and waked to the real life around him--though his thoughtful eyes were still overshadowed.