Part 33 (1/2)
”Dinna speir what I believe in. I canna tell ye. I've been seventy years trying to believe in G.o.d, and to meet anither man that believed in him. So I'm just like the Quaker o' the town o' Redcross, that met by himself every First-day in his ain hoose.”
”Well, but,” I asked again, ”is not complete freedom of thought a glorious aim--to emanc.i.p.ate man's n.o.blest part--the intellect--from the trammels of custom and ignorance?”
”Intellect--intellect!” rejoined he, according to his fas.h.i.+on, catching one up at a word, and playing on that in order to answer, not what one said, but what one's words led to. ”I'm sick o' all the talk anent intellect I hear noo. An' what's the use o' intellect? 'Aristocracy o' intellect,'
they cry. Curse a' aristocracies--intellectual anes, as well as anes o'
birth, or rank, or money! What! will I ca' a man my superior, because he's cleverer than mysel?--will I boo down to a bit o' brains, ony mair than to a stock or a stane? Let a man prove himsel' better than me, my laddie--honester, humbler, kinder, wi' mair sense o' the duty o' man, an'
the weakness o' man--and that man I'll acknowledge--that man's my king, my leader, though he war as stupid as Eppe Dalgleish, that could na count five on her fingers, and yet keepit her drucken father by her ain hands' labour for twenty-three yeers.”
We could not agree to all this, but we made a rule of never contradicting the old sage in one of his excited moods, for fear of bringing on a week's silent fit--a state which generally ended in his smoking himself into a bilious melancholy; but I made up my mind to be henceforth a frequent auditor of Mr. Windrush's oratory.
”An' sae the deevil's dead!” said Sandy, half to himself, as he sat crooning and smoking that night over the fire. ”Gone at last, puir fallow!--an' he sae little appreciated, too! Every gowk laying his ain sins on Nickie's back, puir Nickie!--verra like that much misunderstood politeecian, Mr. John Cade, as Charles Buller ca'd him in the Hoose o'
Commons--an' he to be dead at last! the warld'll seem quite unco without his auld-farrant phizog on the streets. Aweel, aweel--aiblins he's but shammin'.--
”When pleasant Spring came on apace, And showers began to fa', John Barleycorn got up again, And sore surprised them a'.
”At ony rate, I'd no bury him till he began smell a wee strong like. It's a grewsome thing, is premature interment, Alton, laddie!”
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS.
But all this while, my slavery to Mr. O'Flynn's party-spirit and coa.r.s.eness was becoming daily more and more intolerable--an explosion was inevitable; and an explosion came.
Mr. O'Flynn found out that I had been staying at Cambridge, and at a cathedral city too; and it was quite a G.o.dsend to him to find any one who knew a word about the inst.i.tutions at which he had been railing weekly for years. So nothing would serve him but my writing a set of articles on the universities, as a prelude to one on the Cathedral Establishments. In vain I pleaded the shortness of my stay there, and the smallness of my information.
”Och, were not abuses notorious? And couldn't I get them up out of any Radical paper--and just put in a little of my own observations, and a das.h.i.+ng personal cut or two, to spice the thing up, and give it an original look? and if I did not choose to write that--why,” with an enormous oath, ”I should write nothing.” So--for I was growing weaker and weaker, and indeed my hack-writing was breaking down my moral sense, as it does that of most men--I complied; and burning with vexation, feeling myself almost guilty of a breach of trust toward those from whom I had received nothing but kindness, I scribbled off my first number and sent it to the editor--to see it appear next week, three-parts re-written, and every fact of my own furnis.h.i.+ng twisted and misapplied, till the whole thing was as vulgar and commonplace a piece of rant as ever disgraced the people's cause. And all this, in spite of a solemn promise, confirmed by a volley of oaths, that I ”should say what I liked, and speak my whole mind, as one who had seen things with his own eyes had a right to do.”
Furious, I set off to the editor; and not only my pride, but what literary conscience I had left, was stirred to the bottom by seeing myself made, whether I would or not, a blackguard and a slanderer.
As it was ordained, Mr. O'Flynn was gone out for an hour or two; and, unable to settle down to any work till I had fought my battle with him fairly out, I wandered onward, towards the West End, staring into print-shop windows, and meditating on many things.
As it was ordained, also, I turned up Regent Street, and into Langham Place; when, at the door of All-Souls Church, behold a crowd and a long string of carriages arriving, and all the pomp and glory of a grand wedding.
I joined the crowd from mere idleness, and somehow found myself in the first rank, just as the bride was stepping out of the carriage--it was Miss Staunton; and the old gentleman who handed her out was no other than the dean. They were, of course, far too deeply engaged to recognise insignificant little me, so that I could stare as thoroughly to my heart's content as any of the butcher-boys and nursery-maids around me.
She was closely veiled--but not too closely to prevent my seeing her magnificent lip and nostril curling with pride, resolve, rich tender pa.s.sion. Her glorious black-brown hair--the true ”purple locks” which Homer so often talks of--rolled down beneath her veil in great heavy ringlets; and with her tall and rounded figure, and step as firm and queenly as if she were going to a throne, she seemed to me the very ideal of those magnificent Eastern Zubeydehs and Nourmahals, whom I used to dream of after reading the ”Arabian Nights.”
As they entered the doorway, almost touching me, she looked round, as if for some one. The dean whispered something in his gentle, stately way, and she answered by one of those looks so intense, and yet so bright, so full of unutterable depths of meaning and emotion, that, in spite of all my antipathy, I felt an admiration akin to awe thrill through me, and gazed after her so intently, that Lillian--Lillian herself--was at my side, and almost pa.s.sed me before I was aware of it.
Yes, there she was, the foremost among a bevy of fair girls, ”herself the fairest far,” all April smiles and tears, golden curls, snowy rosebuds, and hovering clouds of lace--a fairy queen;--but yet--but yet--how shallow that hazel, eye, how empty of meaning those delicate features, compared with the strength and intellectual richness of the face which had preceded her!
It was too true--I had never remarked it before; but now it flashed across me like lightning--and like lightning vanished; for Lillian's eye caught mine, and there was the faintest spark of a smile of recognition, and pleased surprise, and a nod. I blushed scarlet with delight; some servant-girl or other, who stood next to me, had seen it too--quick-eyed that women are--and was looking curiously at me. I turned, I knew not why, in my delicious shame, and plunged through the crowd to hide I knew not what.
I walked on--poor fool--in an ecstasy; the whole world was transfigured in my eyes, and virtue and wisdom beamed from every face I pa.s.sed. The omnibus-horses were racers, and the drivers--were they not my brothers of the people? The very policemen looked sprightly and philanthropic. I shook hands earnestly with the crossing-sweeper of the Regent Circus, gave him my last twopence, and rushed on, like a young David, to exterminate that Philistine O'Flynn.
Ah well! I was a great fool, as others too have been; but yet, that little chance-meeting did really raise me. It made me sensible that I was made for better things than low abuse of the higher cla.s.ses. It gave me courage to speak out, and act without fear, of consequences, once at least in that confused facing-both-ways period of my life. O woman! woman! only true missionary of civilization and brotherhood, and gentle, forgiving charity; is it in thy power, and perhaps in thine only, to bind up the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives? One real lady, who should dare to stoop, what might she not do with us--with our sisters? If--