Part 11 (1/2)

We were so essentially unlike in almost every particular--I, with my innate refinement and high culture, my over-fastidious exclusiveness in the choice of a.s.sociates; and he, a big, red, coa.r.s.e brute, with neither sweetness nor light, who knew himself a Philistine, and seemed to like it--we were so unlike, that I often asked him, with a genuine desire for information, _what_ had I in common with him?

[Footnote 1: Reprinted from _Temple Bar_ for March 1879, by permission of the Proprietors.]

And yet it will scarcely be believed, perhaps, that with such good reasons for keeping apart, we were continually seeking one another's company with a zest that knew no satiety. The only explanation I can offer for such a phenomenon is, that our mutual antipathy had become so much a part of ourselves, that we could not let it perish for lack of nourishment.

Perhaps we were not conscious of this at the time, and when we agreed to go on a walking tour together in North Wales, I think it was chiefly because we knew that we could devise no surer means of annoying one another; but, however that may be, in an ill-starred day for my own peace of mind, we started upon a journey from which but one of us was fated to return.

I pa.s.s by the painful experiences of the first few days of that unhappy tour. I will say nothing of Barnjum's grovelling animalism, of his consummate selfishness, his more than bucolic indifference to the charms of Nature, nor even of the mean and sordid way in which he contrived to let me in for railway tickets and hotel bills.

I wish to tell my melancholy story with perfect impartiality, and I am sure that I am not reduced to exciting any prejudice to secure the sympathies of all readers.

I shall pa.s.s, then, to the memorable day when my disgust, so long pent up, so imperfectly concealed, culminated in one grand outburst of a not ign.o.ble indignation, to the hour when I summoned up moral courage to sever the bonds which linked us so unequally.

I remember it so well, that brilliant morning in June when we left the Temperance Hotel, Doldwyddlm, and scaled in sulky silence the craggy heights of Cader Idris, which, I presume, still overhang that picturesque village, while, as we ascended, an ever-changing and ever-improving panorama unrolled itself before my delighted eyes.

The air up there was keen and bracing, and I recollect that I could not repress an aesthetic shudder at the crude and primitive tone which Barnjum's nose had a.s.sumed under atmospheric influences. I mentioned this (for we still maintained the outward forms of friends.h.i.+p), when he retorted, with the brutal personality which formed so strong an ingredient of his character, that if I could only see myself in that suit of mine, and that hat (referring to the dress I was then wearing), I should feel the propriety of letting his nose alone. To which I replied, with a sarcasm that I feel now was a little too crus.h.i.+ng, that I had every intention of doing so, as it was quite painful enough to merely contemplate such a spectacle; and he, evidently meaning to be offensive, remarked, that no one could help his nose getting red, but that any man in my position could at least _dress_ like a gentleman I took no notice of this insult; a Bunting (I don't think I mentioned before that my name is Philibert Bunting)--a Bunting can afford to pa.s.s such insinuations by; indeed, I find it actually cheaper to do so, and I flattered myself that my dress was distinguished by a sort of studied looseness, that would appeal at once to a cultivated and artistic eye, though of course Barnjum's hard and shallow organs could not be expected to appreciate it.

I overlooked it, then, and presently we found ourselves skirting the edge of a huge chasm, whose steep sides sloped sheer down into the slate-blue waters of the lake below.

How can I hope to give an idea of the magnificent view which met our eyes as we stood there--a view of which, as far as I am aware, no description has ever yet been attempted?

To our right towered the Peaks of Dolgelly, with their saw-like outline cutting the blue sky with a faint grating sound, while the shreds of white cloud lay below in drifts. At our feet were the sun-lit waters of the lake, upon which danced a fleet of brown-sailed herring-boats; beyond was the plain of Capel Curig, and there, over on the left, sparkled the falls of Y-Dydd.

As I took all this in I felt a longing to say something worthy of the occasion. Being possessed of a considerable fund of carefully-dried and selected humour, I frequently amuse myself by a species of intellectual exercise, which consists in so framing a remark that a word or more therein may bear two entirely opposite constructions; and some of the quaint names of the vicinity seemed to me just then admirably adapted for this purpose.

I was about to gauge my dull-witted companion's capacity by some such test, when he forestalled me.

'You ought to live up here, Bunting,' said he; 'you were made for this identical old mountain.'

I was not displeased, for, Londoner as I am, I have the nerve and steadiness of a practised mountaineer.

'Perhaps I was,' I said good-humouredly; 'but how did _you_ find it out?'

'I'll tell you,' he replied, with one of his odious grins. 'This is Cader Idris, ain't it? well, and you're a _cad awry dressed_, ain't you?

Cader Idrissed, see?' (he was dastard enough to explain) 'That's how _I_ get at it!'

He must have been laboriously leading up to that for the last ten minutes!

I solemnly declare that it was not the personal outrage that roused me; I simply felt that a paltry verbal quibble of that description, emitted amidst such scenery and at that alt.i.tude, required a protest in the name of indignant Nature, and I protested accordingly, although with an impetuosity which I afterwards regretted, and of which I cannot even now entirely approve.

He happened to be standing on the brink of an abyss, and had just turned his back upon me, as, with a vigorous thrust of my right foot, I launched him into the blue aether, with the chuckle at his unhallowed jest still hovering upon his lips.

I am aware that by such an act I took a liberty which, under ordinary circ.u.mstances, even the licence of a life-long friends.h.i.+p would scarcely have justified; but I thought it only due to myself to let him see plainly that I desired our acquaintances.h.i.+p to cease from that instant, and Barnjum was the kind of man upon whom a more delicate hint would have been distinctly thrown away.

I watched his progress with some interest as he rebounded from point to point during his descent. I waited--punctiliously, perhaps, until the echoes he had aroused had died away on the breeze, and then, slowly and thoughtfully, I retraced my steps, and left a spot which was already becoming a.s.sociated for me with memories the reverse of pleasurable.

I took the next up-train, and before I reached town had succeeded in dismissing the incident from my mind, or if I thought of it at all, it was only to indulge relief at the reflection that I had shaken off Barnjum for ever.

But when I had paid my cab, and was taking out my latch-key, a curious thing happened--the driver called me back.