John Halifax, Gentleman. Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
'Tis Mr. Charles. How he's talking and gesticulating! What can he be at?"
Without more ado John leaped the low hedge, and ran down the slope of the Bloody Meadow. I followed less quickly.
There, of a surety, stood our new friend, on one of the simple-fashioned hay-carts that we used about Norton Bury, a low framework on wheels, with a pole stuck at either of the four corners. He was bare-headed, and his hair hung in graceful curls, well powdered. I only hope he had honestly paid the tax, which we were all then exclaiming against—so fondly does custom cling to deformity. Despite the powder, the blue coat, and the shabby velvet breeches, Mr. Charles was a very handsome and striking-looking man. No wonder the poor hay-makers had collected from all parts to hear him harangue.
What was he haranguing upon? Could it be, that like his friend, "John Philip," whoever that personage might be, his vocation was that of a field preacher? It seemed like it, especially judging from the sanctified demeanour of the elder and inferior person who accompanied him; and who sat in the front of the cart, and folded his hands and groaned, after the most approved fashion of a methodistical "revival."
We listened, expecting every minute to be disgusted and shocked: but no! I must say this for Mr. Charles, that in no way did he trespass the bounds of reverence and decorum. His harangue, though given as a sermon, was strictly and simply a moral essay, such as might have emanated from any professor's chair. In fact, as I afterwards learnt, he had given for his text one which the simple rustics received in all respect, as coming from a higher and holier volume than Shakspeare—
"Mercy is twice blessed:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest."
And on that text did he dilate; gradually warming with his subject, till his gestures—which at first had seemed burthened with a queer constraint, that now and then resulted in an irrepressible twitch of the corners of his flexible mouth—became those of a man beguiled into real earnestness. We of Norton Bury had never heard such eloquence.
"Who CAN he be, John? Isn't it wonderful?"
But John never heard me. His whole attention was riveted on the speaker. Such oratory—a compound of graceful action, polished language, and brilliant imagination, came to him as a positive revelation, a revelation from the world of intellect, the world which he longed after with all the ardour of youth.
What that harangue would have seemed like, could we have heard it with maturer ears, I know not; but at eighteen and twenty it literally dazzled us. No wonder it affected the rest of the audience. Feeble men, leaning on forks and rakes, shook their old heads sagely, as if they understood it all. And when the speaker alluded to the horrors of war—a subject which then came so bitterly home to every heart in Britain—many women melted into sobs and tears. At last, when the orator himself, moved by the pictures he had conjured up, paused suddenly, quite exhausted, and asked for a slight contribution "to help a deed of charity," there was a general rush towards him.
"No—no, my good people," said Mr. Charles, recovering his natural manner, though a little clouded, I thought, by a faint shade of remorse; "no, I will not take from any one more than a penny; and then only if they are quite sure they can spare it. Thank you, my worthy man. Thanks, my bonny young lass—I hope your sweetheart will soon be back from the wars. Thank you all, my 'very worthy and approved good masters,' and a fair harvest to you!"
He bowed them away, in a dignified and graceful manner, still standing on the hay-cart. The honest folk trooped off, having no more time to waste, and left the field in possession of Mr. Charles, his co-mate, and ourselves; whom I do not think he had as yet noticed.
He descended from the cart. His companion burst into roars of laughter; but Charles looked grave.
"Poor, honest souls!" said he, wiping his brows—I am not sure that it was only his brows—"Hang me if I'll be at this trick again, Yates."
"It was a trick then, sir," said John, advancing. "I am sorry for it."
"So am I, young man," returned the other, no way disconcerted; indeed, he seemed a person whose frank temper nothing could disconcert. "But starvation is—excuse me—unpleasant; and necessity has no law. It is of vital consequence that I should reach Coltham to-night; and after walking twenty miles one cannot easily walk ten more, and afterwards appear as Macbeth to an admiring audience."
"You are an actor?"
"I am, please your worship—
'A poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is seen no more.'"
There was inexpressible pathos in his tone, and his fine face looked thin and worn—it did not take much to soften both John's feelings and mine towards the "poor player." Besides, we had lately been studying Shakspeare, who for the first time of reading generally sends all young people tragedy-mad.
"You acted well to-day," said John; "all the folk here took you for a methodist preacher."
"Yet I never meddled with theology—only common morality. You cannot say I did."
John thought a moment, and then answered—
"No. But what put the scheme into your head?"
"The fact that, under a like necessity, the same amusing play was played out here years ago, as I told you, by John Philip—no, I will not conceal his name, the greatest actor and the truest gentleman our English stage has ever seen—John Philip Kemble."
And he raised his hat with sincere reverence. We too had heard—at least John had—of this wonderful man.
I saw the fascination of Mr. Charles's society was strongly upon him. It was no wonder. More brilliant, more versatile talent I never saw. He turned "from grave to gay, from lively to severe"—appearing in all phases like the gentleman, the scholar, and the man of the world. And neither John nor I had ever met any one of these characters, all so irresistibly alluring at our age.
I say OUR, because though I followed where he led, I always did it of my own will likewise.
The afternoon began to wane, while we, with our two companions, yet sat talking by the brook-side. Mr. Charles had washed his face, and his travel-sore, blistered feet, and we had induced him, and the man he called Yates, to share our remnants of bread and cheese.
"Now," he said, starting up, "I am ready to do battle again, even with the Thane of Fife—who, to-night, is one Johnson, a fellow of six feet and twelve stone. What is the hour, Mr. Halifax?"
"Mr. Halifax"—(I felt pleased to hear him for the first time so entitled)—had, unfortunately, no watch among his worldly possessions, and candidly owned the fact. But he made a near guess by calculating the position of his unfailing time-piece, the sun.—It was four o'clock.
"Then I must go. Will you not retract, young gentlemen? Surely you would not lose such a rare treat as 'Macbeth,' with—I will not say my humble self—but with that divine Siddons. Such a woman! Shakspeare himself might lean out of Elysium to watch her. You will join us?"
John made a silent, dolorous negative; as he had done once or twice before, when the actor urged us to accompany him to Coltham for a few hours only—we might be back by midnight, easily.
"What do you think, Phineas?" said John, when we stood in the high-road, waiting for the coach; "I have money—and—we have so little pleasure—we would send word to your father. Do you think it would be wrong?"
I could not say; and to this minute, viewing the question nakedly in a strict and moral sense, I cannot say either whether or no it was an absolute crime; therefore, being accustomed to read my wrong or right in "David's" eyes, I remained perfectly passive.
We waited by the hedge-side for several minutes—Mr. Charles ceased his urging, half in dudgeon, save that he was too pleasant a man really to take offence at anything. His conversation was chiefly directed to me. John took no part