Eugene Aram Part 23

"Bunting, I say, do you hear?"

"Yes, your honour, yes; this ere horse is so 'nation sluggish."

"Sluggis.h.!.+ why I thought he was too much the reverse, Bunting? I thought he was one rather requiring the bridle than the spur."

"Augh! your honour, he's slow when he should not, and fast when he should not; changes his mind from pure whim, or pure spite; new to the world, your honour, that's all; a different thing if properly broke.

There be a many like him!"

"You mean to be personal, Mr. Bunting," said Walter, laughing at the evident ill-humour of his attendant.

"Augh! indeed and no!--I daren't--a poor man like me--go for to presume to be parsonal,--unless I get hold of a poorer!"

"Why, Bunting, you do not mean to say that you would be so ungenerous as to affront a man because he was poorer than you?--fie!"

"Whaugh, your honour! and is not that the very reason why I'd affront him? surely it is not my betters I should affront; that would be ill bred, your honour,--quite want of discipline."

"But we owe it to our great Commander," said Walter, "to love all men."

"Augh! Sir, that's very good maxim,--none better--but shows ignorance of the world, Sir--great!"

"Bunting, your way of thinking is quite disgraceful. Do you know, Sir, that it is the Bible you were speaking of?"

"Augh, Sir! but the Bible was addressed to them Jew creturs! How somever, it's an excellent book for the poor; keeps 'em in order, favours discipline,--none more so." "Hold your tongue. I called you, Bunting, because I think I heard you say you had once been at York. Do you know what towns we shall pa.s.s on our road thither?"

"Not I, your honour; it's a mighty long way.--What would the Squire think?--just at Lunnon, too. Could have learnt the whole road, Sir, inns all, if you had but gone on to Lunnon first. Howsomever, young gentlemen will be hasty,--no confidence in those older, and who are experienced in the world. I knows what I knows," and the Corporal recommenced his whistle.

"Why, Bunting, you seem quite discontented at my change of journey. Are you tired of riding, or were you very eager to get to town?"

"Augh! Sir; I was only thinking of what best for your honour,--I!--'tis not for me to like or dislike. Howsomever, the horses, poor creturs, must want rest for some days. Them dumb animals can't go on for ever, b.u.mpety, b.u.mpety, as your honour and I do.--Whaugh!" "It is very true, Bunting, and I have had some thoughts of sending you home again with the horses, and travelling post."

"Eh!" grunted the Corporal, opening his eyes; "hopes your honour ben't serious."

"Why if you continue to look so serious, I must be serious too; you understand, Bunting?"

"Augh--and that's all, your honour," cried the Corporal, brightening up, "shall look merry enough to-morrow, when one's in, as it were, like, to the change of road. But you see, Sir, it took me by surprise. Said I to myself, says I, it is an odd thing for you, Jacob Bunting, on the faith of a man, it is! to go tramp here, tramp there, without knowing why or wherefore, as if you was still a private in the Forty-second, 'stead of a retired Corporal. You see, your honour, my pride was a hurt; but it's all over now;--only spites those beneath me,--I knows the world at my time o' life."

"Well, Bunting, when you learn the reason of my change of plan, you'll be perfectly satisfied that I do quite right. In a word, you know that my father has been long missing; I have found a clue by which I yet hope to trace him. This is the reason of my journey to Yorks.h.i.+re."

"Augh!" said the Corporal, "and a very good reason: you're a most excellent son, Sir;--and Lunnon so nigh!"

"The thought of London seems to have bewitched you; did you expect to find the streets of gold since you were there last?"

"A--well Sir; I hears they be greatly improved."

"Pshaw! you talk of knowing the world, Bunting, and yet you pant to enter it with all the inexperience of a boy. Why even I could set you an example."

"'Tis 'cause I knows the world," said the Corporal, exceedingly nettled, "that I wants to get back to it. I have heard of some spoonies as never kist a girl, but never heard of any one who had kist a girl once, that did not long to be at it again."

"And I suppose, Mr. Profligate, it is that longing which makes you so hot for London?"

"There have been worse longings nor that," quoth the Corporal gravely.

"Perhaps you meditate marrying one of the London belles; an heiress--eh?"

"Can't but say," said the Corporal very solemnly, "but that might be 'ticed to marry a fortin, if so be she was young, pretty, good-tempered, and fell desperately in love with me,--best quality of all."

"You're a modest fellow."

"Why, the longer a man lives, the more knows his value; would not sell myself a bargain now, whatever might at twenty-one!"

"At that rate you would be beyond all price at seventy," said Walter: "but now tell me, Bunting, were you ever in love,--really and honestly in love?"

"Indeed, your honour," said the Corporal, "I have been over head and ears; but that was afore I learnt to swim. Love's very like bathing.

At first we go souse to the bottom, but if we're not drowned, then we gather pluck, grow calm, strike out gently, and make a deal pleasanter thing of it afore we've done. I'll tell you, Sir, what I thinks of love: 'twixt you and me, Sir, 'tis not that great thing in life, boys and girls want to make it out to be; if 'twere one's dinner, that would be summut, for one can't do without that; but lauk, Sir, Love's all in the fancy. One does not eat it, nor drink it; and as for the rest,--why it's bother!"

"Bunting, you're a beast," said Walter in a rage, for though the Corporal had come off with a slight rebuke for his sneer at religion, we grieve to say that an attack on the sacredness of love seemed a crime beyond all toleration to the theologian of twenty-one.

The Corporal bowed, and thrust his tongue in his cheek.

There was a pause of some moments.

"And what," said Walter, for his spirits were raised, and he liked recurring to the quaint shrewdness of the Corporal, "and what, after all, is the great charm of the world, that you so much wish to return to it?"

"Augh!" replied the Corporal, "'tis a pleasant thing to look about un with all one's eyes open; rogue here, rogue there--keeps one alive;--life in Lunnon, life in a village--all the difference 'twixt healthy walk, and a doze in arm-chair; by the faith of a man, 'tis!"

"What! it is pleasant to have rascals about one?"

"Surely yes," returned the Corporal drily; "what so delightful like as to feel one's cliverness and 'bility all set an end--bristling up like a porkypine; nothing makes a man tread so light, feel so proud, breathe so briskly, as the knowledge that he's all his wits about him, that he's a match for any one, that the Divil himself could not take him in. Augh!

that's what I calls the use of an immortal soul--bother!"

Walter laughed.

"And to feel one is likely to be cheated is the pleasantest way of pa.s.sing one's time in town, Bunting, eh?"

"Augh! and in cheating too!" answered the Corporal; "'cause you sees, Sir, there be two ways o' living; one to cheat,--one to be cheated. 'Tis pleasant enough to be cheated for a little while, as the younkers are, and as you'll be, your honour; but that's a pleasure don't last long--t'other lasts all your life; dare say your honour's often heard rich gentlemen say to their sons, 'you ought, for your own happiness'

sake, like, my lad, to have summut to do--ought to have some profession, be you niver so rich,'--very true, your honour, and what does that mean?

why it means that 'stead of being idle and cheated, the boy ought to be busy and cheat--augh!"

"Must a man who follows a profession, necessarily cheat, then?"

"Baugh! can your honour ask that? Does not the Lawyer cheat? and the Doctor cheat? and the Parson cheat, more than any? and that's the reason they all takes so much int'rest in their profession--bother!"

"But the soldier? you say nothing of him."

"Why, the soldier," said the Corporal, with dignity, "the private soldier, poor fellow, is only cheated; but when he comes for to get for to be as high as a corp'ral, or a sargent, he comes for to get to bully others, and to cheat. Augh! then 'tis not for the privates to cheat,--that would be 'sumpton indeed, save us!"

"The General, then, cheats more than any, I suppose?"

"'Course, your honour; he talks to the world 'bout honour an' glory, and love of his Country, and sich like--augh! that's proper cheating!"