Volume I Part 23 (1/2)
”I think, however,” said she, after a pause, ”if you confided the matter to _my_ management, if you leave _me_ to explain to Mrs. Dodd, I shall be able, without revealing more than I wish, to satisfy her as to the object of our journey.”
I heartily a.s.sented to an arrangement so agreeable; I even promised not to see Mrs. D. before we started, lest any unfortunate combination of circ.u.mstances might interfere with our project.
The pecuniary embarra.s.sment I communicated to Lord George. He quite agreed with me that I could n't possibly allude to it to Mrs. G. ”In all likelihood,” said he, ”she will just hand you a book of blank checks, or Herries's circulars, and say, 'Pray do me the favor to take the trouble off my hands.' It is what she usually does with any of her friends with whom she is sufficiently intimate; for, as I told you, she is a 'perfect child about money.'” I might have told him that, so far as having very little of it, so was I too.
”But supposing,” said I, ”that, in the bustle of departure, and in the preoccupation of other thoughts, she should n't remember to do this; such is likely enough, you know?”
”Oh, nothing more so,” said he, laughing. ”She is the most absent creature in the world.”
”In that case,” said I, ”one ought to be, in a measure, prepared.”
”To a certain extent, a.s.suredly,” said he, coolly. ”You might as well take something with you,--a hundred pounds or so.”
You can imagine the choking gulp in my throat as I heard these words.
Why, I had n't twenty--no, not ten; I doubt, greatly, if I had fully five pounds in my possession. I was living in the daily hope of that remittance from you, which, by the way, seems always tardier in coming in proportion as Ireland grows more prosperous.
Tiverton, however, does not limit his services to good counsel; he can act as well as think. For a bill of three thousand francs, at thirty-one days, I received, from the landlord of the hotel, something short of a hundred Napoleons,--a trifle under six hundred per cent per annum, but, of course, not meant to run for that time. Lord George said, ”Everything considered, it was reasonable enough;” and if that implied that I 'd never repay a farthing of it, perhaps he was correct. ”I 'm sorry,”
said he, ”that the 'bit of stiff,'” meaning the bill, ”was n't for five thousand francs, for I want a trifle of cash myself, at this moment.” In this regret I did not share, Tom, for I clearly saw that the additional eighty pounds would have been out of _my_ pocket!
I have now, as briefly as I am able, but, perhaps, tediously enough, told you of all the preliminary arrangements of our journey, save one, which was three lines that I left for Mrs. D. before starting,--not very explanatory, perhaps, but written in ”great haste.”
It was a splendid morning when we started. The sun was just topping the Drachenfels, and sending a perfect flood of golden glory over the Rhine, and that rich tract of yellow corn country along its left bank, the right being still in deep shadow. From the Kreutzberg to the Seven Mountains it was one gorgeous panorama, with mountain and crag, and ruined castles, vine-clad cliffs, and plains of waving wheat, all seen in the calm splendor of a still summer's morning.
I never saw anything as beautiful; perhaps I never shall again. Of my rapturous enjoyment of the scene, as we whirled along with four posters at a gallop, the best criterion I can give you is that I totally forgot everything but the enchanting vision around me. Ireland, home, Dodsborough, petty sessions, police and poor-rates, county cess, Chancery, all my difficulties, down even to Mrs. D. herself, faded away, and left me in undisturbed and unbounded enjoyment.
I have often had to tell you of my disappointment with the Continent; how little it responded to my previous expectations, and how short came every trait of nationality of that striking effect I had once foreshadowed. The distinctive features of race, from which I had antic.i.p.ated so much amus.e.m.e.nt, all the peculiarities of dress, custom, and manner which I had speculated on as sources of interest, had either no existence whatever, or demanded a far shrewder and nicer observation than mine to detect. These have I more than once complained of to you in my letters; and I was fast lapsing into the deep conviction that, except in being the rear-guard of civilization, and adhering to habits which have long since been superseded by improved and better modes with us, the Continent differs wonderfully little from England.
The reason of this impression was manifestly because I was always in intercourse with foreigners who live and trade upon English travellers, who make a livelihood of ministering to John Bull's national leanings in dress, cookery, and furniture; and who, so to say, get up a kind of artificial England abroad, where the Englishman is painfully reminded of all the comforts he has left behind him, without one single opportunity for remembering the compensations he is receiving in return. To this cause is attributable, mainly, the vulgar impression conveyed by a first glance at the Continent It is a bad travesty of a homely original.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 304]
What a sudden change came over me now, as we swept along through this enchanting country, where every sight and every sound were novel and interesting! The little villages, almost escarped from the tall precipice that skirted the river, were often of Roman origin; old towers of brick, and battlemented walls, displaying the S. P. Q. R.,--those wonderful letters which, from school days to old age, call up such conceptions of this mighty people. A great wagon would draw aside to let us pa.s.s; and its giant oxen, with their ma.s.sive beams of timber on their necks, remind one of the old pictures in some ill.u.s.trated edition of the ”Georgics.” The splash of oars, and the loud shouts of men, turn your eyes to the Rhine, and it is a raft, whole acres of timber, slowly floating along, the evidence of some primeval pine forest hundreds of miles away, where the night winds used to sigh in the days of the Csars. And now every head is bare, and every knee is bowed, for a procession moves past, on its way to some holy shrine, the zigzag path to which, up the mountain, is traceable by the white line of peasant girls, whose voices are floating down in mellow chorus. Oh, Tom!
the whole scene was full of enchantment, and didn't require the consciousness that would haunt me to make it a vision of perfect enjoyment. You ask what was that same consciousness I allude to? Neither more nor less, my dear friend, than the little whisper within me, that said, ”Kenny Dodd, where are you going, and for what? Is it Mrs. D.
is sitting beside you? or are you quite sure it's not some other man's wife?”
You 'll say, perhaps, these were rather disturbing reflections, and so they would have been had they ever got that far; but as mere flitting fancies, as pa.s.sing shadows over the mind, they heightened the enjoyment of the moment by some strange and mysterious agency, which I am quite unable to explain, but which, I believe, is referable to the same category as the French d.u.c.h.ess's regret ”that iced water was n't a sin, or it would be the greatest delight of existence.”
If my conscience had been unmannerly enough to say, ”Ain't you doing wrong, Kenny Dodd?” I 'm afraid I 'd have said ”Yes,” with a chuckle of satisfaction. I'm afraid, my dear Tom, that the human heart, at least in the Irish version, is a very incomprehensible volume.
Let us strive to be good as much as we may, there is a secret sense of pleasure in doing wrong that shows what a hold wickedness has of us.
I believe we flatter ourselves that we are cheating the devil all the while, because we intend to do right at last; but the danger is that the game comes to an end before we suspect, and there we are, ”cleaned out,”
and our hand full of trumps.
You'll say, ”What has all this to say to the Rhine, or Mrs. Gore Hampton?” Nothing whatever. It only shows that, like the Reflections on a Broomstick, your point of departure bears no relation to the goal of your voyage.
”What's the name of this village, Mr. Dodd?” whispers a soft voice from the deep recesses of the britschka.
”This is Andernach, Madam,” said I, opening my ”John,” for I find there's no doing without him. ”It is one of the most ancient cities of the Rhine. It was called by the Romans--”