Volume I Part 33 (1/2)
”I have never heard so,” said he.
”Then what has he done?--what is he?” cried I, impatiently.
He made a sign for me to come close, and then whispered in my ear what I have just told you, only with a voice full of holy horror at the crime of a man who had dared to have an opinion not in accordance with that of a Police Prefect! That he--a man of hard study and deep reading--should venture to draw other lessons from history than those taught at drum-heads by corporals and petty officers!
”Is that all?--is that all?” asked I, indignantly.
”All all!” exclaimed he; ”do you want more?”
”Why, these things may possibly interest police spies, but they have no imaginable concern for me.”
”That is precisely what they have, sir,” said he, hastily, and in a still more cautious tone. ”You could not show that miserable man a kindness without its attracting the attention of the authorities. They never could be brought to believe mere humanity was the motive, and they would seek for some explanation more akin to their daily habits. As an Englishman, I know your custom is to treat these things haughtily, and make every personal insult of this kind a national question; but the inconvenience of this course will track you over the whole Continent.
Your pa.s.sport will be demanded here, permission refused you to remain there. At one town your luggage will be scrutinized, at another, your letters opened. I conclude you come abroad to enjoy yourself. Is this the way to do it? At all events, he is gone now,” added he, looking down the room, ”and let's think no more of him. Messieurs, fates votre jeu!”
and once more rang out the burden of that monotonous injunction to ruin and beggary!
I was n't exactly in the mood for high play at the moment; on the contrary, my thoughts were with poor Ephraim and his sorrows; but, for very pride's sake, I was obliged to seem indifferent and at ease. For I must tell you, Bob, this cold, impa.s.sive bearing is the high breeding of the play-table, and to transgress it, even for an instant, is a gross breach of good manners. I have told you my mind was preoccupied; the results were soon manifest in my play. Every ”coup” was ill-timed. I was always on the wrong color, and lost without intermission.
”This is not your 'beau moment,' Monsieur le Comte,” said the croupier to me, as he raked in a stake I had suffered to quadruple itself by remaining. ”I should almost say, wait for another time!”
”Had you said so half an hour ago,” replied I, bitterly, ”the counsel might have been worth heeding. There goes the last of twenty thousand francs.” And there it did go, Bob! swept in by the same remorseless hand that gathered all I possessed.
I lingered for a few moments, half stunned. I felt like one that requires some seconds to recover from the effects of a severe blow, but who feels conscious that with time he shall rally and be himself again.
After that I strolled out into the open air, lighted my cigar, and turned off into a steep path that led up the mountain side, under the cover of a dense pine forest. I walked for hours, without noticing the way at either side of me, and it was only when, overcome with thirst, I stooped to drink at a little fountain, that I perceived I had crossed over the crest of the mountain, and gained a little glen at its foot, watered by what I guessed must be a capital fis.h.i.+ng-stream. Indeed, I had not long to speculate on this point, for, a few hundred yards off, I beheld a man standing knee-deep in the water, over which he threw his line, with that easy motion of the wrist that bespeaks the angler.
I must tell you that the sight of a fly-fisher is so far interesting abroad that it is only practised by the English; and although, Heaven knows, there is no scarcity of them in town and cities, the moment you wander in the least out of the beaten, frequented track of travel, you rejoice to see your countryman. I made towards him, therefore, at once, to ask what sport he had, and came up just as he had landed a good-sized fish.
”I see, sir,” said I, ”that the fish are not so strong as in our waters.
You 'd have given that fellow twenty minutes more play, had he been in a Highland tarn.”
”Or in that brisk little river at Dodsborough,” replied he, laughing; and, turning round at the same time to sainte me, I perceived that it was Captain Morris. You may remember him being quartered at Bruff, about two years ago, and having had some altercation with my governor on some magisterial topics. He was never much to my taste. I thought him somewhat of a military prig, very stiff and stand off; but whether it was the shooting-jacket _vice_ the red coat, or change of place and scene, I know not, but now he seemed far more companionable than I could have thought him. He was a capital angler too, and spoke of shooting and deer-stalking like one pa.s.sionately fond of them. I felt half ashamed at first, when he asked me my opinion of the trout streams in the neighborhood, and it was only as we warmed up that I owned to the kind of life I had been leading at Baden, and the consequences it had entailed.
”Fortunately for me, in one sense,” said he, laughing, ”I have always been too poor a man to play at anything; and chess, which excludes all idea of money, is the only game I know. But of this I am quite sure, that the worst of gambling is neither the time nor the money lost upon it; it is the simple fact that, if you ever win, from that moment forth you are unfitted to the pursuits by which men earn their livelihood. The slow, careworn paths of daily industry become insufferable to him who can compa.s.s a year's labor by the turn of a die. Enrich yourself but once--only once--at the play-table, and try then what it is to follow any career of patient toil.”
He had seen, he said, many examples of this in his own regiment; some of the very finest fellows had been ruined by play, for, as he remarked, ”it is strange enough, there are few vices so debasing, and yet the natures and temperaments most open to the seduction of the gaming-table are very far from being those originally degraded.” I suppose that his tone of conversation chimed in well with my thoughts at the moment, for I listened to all he said with deep interest, and willingly accepted his invitation to eat some of his morning's sport at a little cottage, where he lived, hard by. He had taken it for the season, and was staying there with his mother, a charming old lady, who welcomed me with great cordiality.
I dined and pa.s.sed the evening with them. I don't remember when I spent one so much to my satisfaction, for there was something more than courtesy, something beyond mere politeness, in their manner towards me; and I could observe in any chance allusion to the girls, there was a degree of real interest that almost savored of friends.h.i.+p. There was but one point on which I did not thoroughly go with Morris, and that was about Tiverton. On that I found him full of the commonest and most vulgar prejudices. He owned that there was no acquaintances.h.i.+p between them, and therefore I was able to attribute much, if not all, of his impressions to erroneous information. Now I know George intimately,--n.o.body can know him better. He is what they call in the world ”a loose fish.” He's not overburdened with strict notions or rigid principles; he 'd tell you himself, that to be enc.u.mbered with either would be like entering for a rowing-match in a strait waistcoat; but he is a fellow to share his last s.h.i.+lling with a friend,--thoroughly generous and free-hearted. These are qualities, however, that men like Morris hold cheap. They seem to argue that n.o.body stands in need of such attributes. I differ with them there totally. My notion is that s.h.i.+pwreck is so common a thing in life, it is always pleasant to think that a friend can throw you a spare hencoop when you're sinking.
We chatted till the night closed in, and then, as the moon got up, Morris strolled with me to within a mile of Baden.
”There!” said he, pointing to the little village, now all spangled with its starry lights,--”there lies the fatal spot that has blighted many a hope, and made many a heart a ruin! I wish you were miles away from it!”
”It cannot injure me much now,” said I, laughing; ”I am as regularly 'cleaned out' as a poor old professor I met there this morning, Herr Ephraim.”
”Not Ephraim Gauss?” asked he. ”Did you meet _him?_”
”If that be his name,--a small, mean-looking man, with a white beard--”
”One of the first men in Germany--the greatest civilian--the most learned Orientalist--and a man of almost universal attainment in science--tell me of him.”