John Halifax, Gentleman. Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
no! I spoke hastily. I did not mean I ever should do such a wrong thing; but merely that I sometimes feel the wish to do it. I can't help it; it's my Apollyon that I have to fight with—everybody keeps a private Apollyon, I fancy. Now, Phineas, be content; Apollyon is beaten down."
He rose up, but I thought that, in the red glow of the twilight, he looked rather pale. He stretched his hand to help me up from the grass. We went into the house together, silently.
After supper, when the chimes struck half-past nine, John prepared to leave as usual. He went to bid good-night to my father, who was sitting meditatively over the fireless hearth-place, sometimes poking the great bow-pot of fennel and asparagus, as in winter he did the coals: an instance of obliviousness, which, in my sensible and acute father, argued very deep cogitation on some subject or other.
"Good-night," said John, twice over, before his master heard him.
"Eh?—Oh, good-night, good-night, lad! Stay! Halifax, what hast thee got to do to-morrow?"
"Not much, unless the Russian hides should come in; I cleared off the week's accounts last night, as usual."
"Ay, to-morrow I shall look over all thy books and see how thee stand'st, and what further work thou art fit for. Therefore, take a day's holiday, if thee likes."
We thanked him warmly. "There, John," whispered I, "you may have your wish, and run wild to-morrow."
He said, "the wish had gone out of him." So we planned a sweet lazy day under the Midsummer sky, in some fields about a mile off, called the Vineyards.
The morning came, and we took our way thither, under the Abbey walls, and along a lane, shaded on one side by the "willows in the water-courses." We came out in those quiet hay-fields, which, tradition says, had once grown wine for the rosy monks close by, and history avers, were afterwards watered by a darker stream than the blood of grapes. The Vineyards had been a battle-field; and under the long wavy grass, and the roots of the wild apple trees, slept many a Yorkist and Lancastrian. Sometimes an unusually deep furrow turned out a white bone—but more often the relics were undisturbed, and the meadows used as pastures or hay-fields.
John and I lay down on some wind-rows, and sunned ourselves in the warm and delicious air. How beautiful everything was! so very still! with the Abbey-tower—always the most picturesque point in our Norton Bury views—showing so near, that it almost seemed to rise up out of the fields and hedge-rows.
"Well, David," and I turned to the long, lazy figure beside me, which had considerably flattened the hay, "are you satisfied?"
"Ay."
Thus we lounged out all the summer morning, recurring to a few of the infinitude of subjects we used to compare notes upon; though we were neither of us given to wordiness, and never talked but when we had something to say. Often—as on this day—we sat for hours in a pleasant dreaminess, scarcely exchanging a word; nevertheless, I could generally track John's thoughts, as they went wandering on, ay, as clearly as one might track a stream through a wood; sometimes—like to-day—I failed.
In the afternoon, when we had finished our bread and cheese—eaten slowly and with graceful dignity, in order to make dinner a more important and lengthy affair—he said abruptly—
"Phineas, don't you think this field is rather dull? Shall we go somewhere else? not if it tires you, though."
I protested the contrary, my health being much above the average this summer. But just as we were quitting the field we met two rather odd-looking persons entering it, young-old persons they seemed, who might own to any age or any occupation. Their dress, especially that of the younger, amused us by its queer mixture of fashionableness and homeliness, such as grey ribbed stockings and shining paste shoe-buckles, rusty velvet small-clothes and a coatee of blue cloth. But the wearer carried off this anomalous costume with an easy, condescending air, full of pleasantness, humour, and grace.
"Sir," said he, approaching John Halifax with a bow that I feel sure the "first gentleman of his day," as loyal folk then entitled the Prince Regent, could not have surpassed—"Sir, will you favour me by informing us how far it is to Coltham?"
"Ten miles, and the stage will pass here in three hours."
"Thank you; at present I have little to do with the—at least with THAT stage. Young gentlemen, excuse our continuing our dessert, in fact, I may say our dinner. Are you connoisseurs in turnips?"
He offered us—with a polite gesture—one of the "swedes" he was munching. I declined; but John, out of a deeper delicacy than I could boast, accepted it.
"One might dine worse," he said; "I have done, sometimes."
"It was a whim of mine, sir. But I am not the first remarkable person who has eaten turnips in your Norton Bury fields—ay, and turned field-preacher afterwards—the celebrated John Philip—"
Here the elder and less agreeable of the two wayfarers interposed with a nudge, indicating silence.
"My companion is right, sir," he continued. "I will not betray our illustrious friend by mentioning his surname; he is a great man now, and might not wish it generally known that he had dined off turnips. May I give you instead my own humble name?"
He gave it me; but I, Phineas Fletcher, shall copy his reticence, and not indulge the world therewith. It was a name wholly out of my sphere, both then and now; but I know it has since risen into note among the people of the world. I believe, too, its owner has carried up to the topmost height of celebrity always the gay, gentlemanly spirit and kindly heart which he showed when sitting with us and eating swedes. Still, I will not mention his surname—I will only call him "Mr. Charles."
"Now, having satisfactorily 'munched, and munched, and munched,' like the sailor's wife who had chestnuts in her lap—are you acquainted with my friend, Mr. William Shakspeare, young gentleman?—I must try to fulfil the other duties of existence. You said the Coltham mail passed here in three hours? Very well. I have the honour of wishing you a very good day, Mr.—"
"Halifax."
"And yours?"
"Fletcher."
"Any connection with him who went partnership with the worthy Beaumont?"
"My father has no partner, sir," said I. But John, whose reading had lately surpassed mine, and whom nothing ever puzzled, explained that I came from the same old stock as the brothers Phineas and Giles Fletcher. Upon which Mr. Charles, who till now had somewhat overlooked me, took off his hat, and congratulated me on my illustrious descent.
"That man has evidently seen a good deal of the world," said John, smiling; "I wonder what the world is like!"
"Did you not see something of it as a child?"
"Only the worst and lowest side; not the one I want to see now. What business do you think that Mr. Charles is? A clever man, anyhow; I should like to see him again."
"So should I."
Thus talking at intervals and speculating upon our new acquaintance, we strolled along till we came to a spot called by the country people, "The Bloody Meadow," from being, like several other places in the neighbourhood, the scene of one of those terrible slaughters chronicled in the wars of the Roses. It was a sloping field, through the middle of which ran a little stream down to the meadow's end, where, fringed and hidden by a plantation of trees, the Avon flowed. Here, too, in all directions, the hay-fields lay, either in green swathes, or tedded, or in the luxuriously-scented quiles. The lane was quite populous with waggons and hay-makers—the men in their corduroys and blue hose—the women in their trim jackets and bright calamanco petticoats. There were more women than men, by far, for the flower of the peasant youth of England had been drafted off to fight against "Bonyparty." Still hay-time was a glorious season, when half our little town turned out and made holiday in the sunshine.
"I think we will go to a quieter place, John. There seems a crowd down in the meadow; and who is that man standing on the hay-cart, on the other side the stream?"
"Don't