Part 7 (1/2)
I had, in due routine, become captain of the Oppidans--could, on an emergency, translate the dead languages--had worked myself into the eleven of cricket and of foot-ball, and now came forth from Keate's chamber, destined to learn that ”the recollections of past happiness are the wrinkles of the soul.”
BOOK THE SECOND.
CHAPTER I.
The youngest of a numerous family,--now that every profession is overstocked,--has no right to entertain considerable expectations.
Therefore, when my father endured the expenses of my education till my twenty-third year, he did far more than was inc.u.mbent on himself, and far more than I, in any way, deserved. It was, indeed, an expensive education, and the object to be gained by it, the Church.
Unfortunately, my inclination for this had never been ascertained, and still more unfortunately, from my youth, I had ever opinions and difficulties on religious points, thoroughly inconsistent with the established one. These I had ever kept within myself, and it has been my ruin. Had I earlier exposed them to my father, perhaps I might have prosperously pursued some other profession, and been, at this moment, something like an useful member of society.
Finally, in opposition to my own judgment and conviction, I bowed to that of others, and was ordained Deacon, in St. George's Chapel, Hanover Square. I now retreated to a parish in a remote county, which henceforth might be considered in the light of an honourable exile.
One Sunday, then, in the depth of a rainy winter, I set off on my horse, with my canonicals strapped before me in a valise, to commence my clerical duties. On entering my parish, for want of a more respectable asylum, I put up at a public-house, where I changed my dress, and came forth, for the first time, in the character of a Divine, walking towards my church, where I met with an unusually large congregation a.s.sembled to hear ”the new parson.”
Notwithstanding my lamentable deficiency of self-possession, I got through the service without any distressing error--I ought not to have read the Absolution, that being restricted to priests, nor should I have upset the cus.h.i.+on on which I was kneeling, for, not having sufficient confidence to replace it, I was forced to hang on by my elbows to the reading-desk for the remainder of the Litany. As for my sermon, I knew it by heart, and it went off very well. I think, at all times, if my sermon was a good one, I used to get along well enough, for, as I proceeded, I became interested in it. On the other hand, when it was considerably below the average, I became even more so, labouring to gain the conclusion, like a wounded partridge to reach the adjoining enclosure.
Having accomplished the service, I fondly concluded that my little devoir was finished for the day, and that I might now retire to collect my agitated nerves in quiet, but at the porch I was requested to visit an old woman who was lying in the poor-house, in the last stage of a dropsy. The only entrance to her chamber, or rather, her loft, was by an upright ladder fixed against the wall, the two upper steps of which were broken away. After a little manoeuvring in consequence of this difficulty, I entered the place in the att.i.tude of Nebuchadnezzar in the act of grazing, ”meekly kneeling on my knees.”
Like all other invalids in humble life, she was anxious that I should become impressed with the full extent of her suffering, and to this intent was irresistibly importunate in her entreaties that I would grasp her arm, and, to my horror, the next moment I saw the impression of my fingers deeply, and, to all appearance, permanently stamped upon her fles.h.!.+ With this ordeal she appeared satisfied, and having read the prayers for the sick, I really suspect a little impressively, owing to my feelings as a novice, and left upon her pillow a few s.h.i.+llings, I do think and hope that her spirits were a little brighter than before--and there was need, for there were faint hopes of her descending that ladder more, save for her ”long home.”
I once more directed my steps to the public-house for my horse, whose head I now turned towards a farm-house where I had written to procure apartments. I had proceeded but a short distance, when he sunk up to the girths in a small bog, but contrived to scramble out so soon as I had dismounted. I knew beforehand, that my future residence was inaccessible for any description of carriage, but as I was little likely to be enc.u.mbered in this way, it was a matter of no consideration, but it certainly annoyed me to find that every now and then I was liable to get my sermon moistened in a quagmire.
In the midst, then, of these bogs was my solitary abode, which enjoyed the somewhat singular appellation of Pinslow. This, I fancy, from its situation among the surrounding mora.s.ses, to have been a corruption of ”Peninsula,” as it had but one line of access.
I was destined to be the first of my profession that ever resided in the parish. The salary being very minute, with no parsonage-house, hitherto each clergyman, save the one of the neighbouring parish, had conscientiously declined the appointment.
On reaching my house, I found it to be rurally situated in the centre of its straw-yard, but altogether well suited to my wants. There was a very good one-stalled stable, or loose box, and as, on rainy days, I would throw off my reading-coat, and rub down my horse for an hour, this was an object of some importance. I was equally fortunate with regard to my sitting-room, for, without rising, I could reach anything I wished for, from one end of it to the other. A second room was sufficiently s.p.a.cious to hold the bed.
Towards the close of the evening, laying aside etiquette, as Crusoe would in his solitary isle, I went out in order to visit a curate who had lately taken the parish bordering on my own, and who, like myself, had just entered on his noviciate. Here I found Seymour, a fellow Etonian and contemporary.
Though we had never before been intimate, how happy was I to meet with him. For years had I been in the habit of seeing him every day, when all was happiness, and now to be with him again, though my prospects were as gloomy as the barren moors around us! I felt how different was my regard for him to that for friends of later date. The truth is, we knew each other!
This, together with youthful and happy a.s.sociations, is the secret of all those lasting friends.h.i.+ps commenced in boyhood. We feel, however we may try to conceal it, that our acquaintances in later life may be playing a part, or at all events, may be guided more or less by interested motives; while, on the other hand, should sad experience not have taught us the same policy, it will inevitably happen, that sooner or later we shall have to deplore our imprudence. It is not so much that we are betrayed as misconstrued; our opinions are misinterpreted from ignorance of our real dispositions. This, then, is why it has become so imperative on us to shroud ourselves in reserve; and, alas! the more so as our dispositions may be sanguine and ardent.
Hence, too, the Lord Chesterfield's scouted maxim, ”Do not be, but seem,” though his lords.h.i.+p is not to be reprobated so much as the world, that compelled him thus to advise his own son. But I fear I shall be found fault with by both parties, as I have learnt to be, but not to seem.
No wonder, then, that we hasten to renew our early friends.h.i.+ps, and throw aside all this deplorable restraint.
”Your father is a horrid radical,” I once heard a boy say to the Lord Chancellor's son.
”And your mother is his Majesty's mistress,” was the retort, in even plainer language.
This is adopting the other extreme, but will here serve as a sample of that youthful openness, however ridiculous and disagreeable, which teaches us at once how to choose our friends and confidants, with little fear of being mistaken; and when we have arrived at manhood, whatever number of years may have separated us, we are still conscious of each other's nature, because we have learnt, in the meantime, that it never changes, in whatever degree it may have done so in appearance. Let any one, for a moment, bestow his attention upon some prominent person of the present day, whose character may contrast with what it was in boyhood, and has he confidence in him? in other words, is he imposed upon with the rest? He may cling to him for auld lang syne, but he will be far from being deceived, while the other is as conscious that he is not so.
For this reason, I have always thought well of those who have carried on their early intimacy to after-life. One of them must be creditable to our race, for I have noticed friends.h.i.+p between two indifferent characters ever to be brief.
Seymour, poor fellow, was just now under rather adverse circ.u.mstances, for he had arrived here but five days, and had been confined to his bed during the four last of them, having caught cold from wet feet, which I regretted the more, as he had but little chance, in such a country, of ever again enjoying the comfort of dry ones. When I arrived at his hovel he had just come down to his sitting-room, and I think I seldom recollect a more comfortless, or ludicrous scene either. Till this moment, I suppose, he who had roughed it as little as any one, was now looking pale, wretched, and emaciated, with his slender, gentlemanly figure crouched close upon the comfortless fire-place. Should he have the energy to stir for anything, his nicely arranged hair was instantly dimmed with the cobwebs and dust which it gathered as it swept across the low ceiling. On the dark and damp floor was scattered a number of splendidly bound books, with a Wilkinson's saddle. Along the wall was tidily arranged an extensive collection of Hoby's boots, and a hat-box, imprinted with ”Lock, Saint James' Street,” but which article was now converted into a temporary corn-bin, and was nearly full of black oats.