A Day's Ride. Charles James Lever
think I have it,” said his Lordship. “Courtenay has got two three-year-olds down here at his uncle's, one of them under heavy engagements for the spring meetings. Master Jack has taken a run down to have a look at them.”
“By Jove, Kel, you 're right! he's always wide awake, and that stupid leaden-eyed look he has, has done him good service in the world.”
“I say, old Oxley, shall we dash in and unearth him? Or shall we let him fancy that we know nothing of his being here at all?”
“What does Hammond say?”
“I'd say, leave him to himself,” replied a deep voice; “you can't go and see him without asking him to dinner; and he 'll walk into us after, do what we will.”
“Not, surely, if we don't play,” said Oxley.
“Would n't he, though? Why, he 'd screw a bet out of a bishop.”
“I 'd do with him as Tomkinson did,” said his Lordship; “he had him down at his lodge in Scotland, and bet him fifty pounds that he could n't pass a week without a wager. Jack booked the bet and won it, and Tomkinson franked the company.”
“What an artful villain my counterpart must be!” I said. I stared in the glass to see if I could discover the sheepish-ness they laid such stress on. I was pale, to be sure, and my hair a light brown, but so was Shelley's; indeed, there was a wild, but soft expression in my eyes that resembled his, and I could recognize many things in our natures that seemed to correspond. It was the poetic dreaminess, the lofty abstractedness from all the petty cares of every-day life which vulgar people set down as simplicity; and thus—
“The soaring thoughts that reached the stare,
Seemed ignorance to them.”
As I uttered the consolatory lines, I felt two hands firmly pressed over my eyes, while a friendly voice called out, “Found out, old fellow! run fairly to earth!” “Ask him if he knows you,” whispered another, but in a voice I could catch.
“Who am I, Jack?” cried the first speaker.
“Situated as I now am,” I replied, “I am unable to pronounce; but of one thing I am assured—I am certain I am not called Jack.”
The slow and measured intonation of my voice seemed to electrify them, for my captor relinquished his hold and fell back, while the two others, after a few seconds of blank surprise, burst into a roar of laughter; a sentiment which the other could not refrain from, while he struggled to mutter some words of apology.
“Perhaps I can explain your mistake,” I said blandly; “I am supposed to be extremely like the Prince of Salms Hökinshauven—”
“No, no!” burst in Lord Keldrum, whose voice I recognized, “we never saw the Prince. The blunder of the waiter led us into this embarrassment; we fancied you were—”
“Mr. Burgoyne,” I chimed in.
“Exactly—Jack Burgoyne; but you're not a bit like him.”
“Strange, then; but I'm constantly mistaken for him; and when in London, I 'm actually persecuted by people calling out, 'When did you come up, Jack?' 'Where do you hang out?' 'How long do you stay?' 'Dine with me to-day—to-morrow—Saturday?' and so on; and although, as I have remarked, these are only so many embarrassments for me, they all show how popular must be my prototype.” I had purposely made this speech of mine a little long, for I saw by the disconcerted looks of the party that they did not see how to wind up “the situation,” and, like all awkward men, I grew garrulous where I ought to have been silent. While I rambled on, Lord Keldrum exchanged a word or two with one of his friends; and as I finished, he turned towards me, and, with an air of much courtesy, said—
“We owe you every apology for this intrusion, and hope you will pardon it; there is, however, but one way in which we can certainly feel assured that we have your forgiveness—that is, by your joining us. I see that your dinner is in preparation, so pray let me countermand it, and say that you are our guest.”
“Lord Keldrum,” said one of the party, presenting the speaker; “my name is Hammond, and this is Captain Oxley, Coldstream Guards.”
I saw that this move required an exchange of ratifications, and so I bowed, and said, “Algernon Sydney Potts.”
“There are Staffordshire Pottses?”
“No relation,” I said stiffly. It was Hammond who made the remark, and with a sneering manner that I could not abide.
“Well, Mr. Potts, it is agreed,” said Lord Keldrum, with his peculiar urbanity, “we shall see you at eight No dressing. You'll find us in this fishing-costume you see now.”
I trust my reader, who has dined out any day he pleased and in any society he has liked these years past, will forgive me if I do not enter into any detailed account of my reasons for accepting this invitation. Enough if I freely own that to me, A. S. Potts, such an unexpected honor was about the same surprise as if I had been announced governor of a colony, or bishop in a new settlement.
“At eight sharp, Mr. Potts.”
“The next door down the passage.”
“Just as you are, remember!” were the three parting admonitions with which they left me.
CHAPTER III. TRUTH NOT ALWAYS IN WINE
Who has not experienced the charm of the first time in his life, when totally removed from all the accidents of his station, the circumstance of his fortune, and his other belongings, he has taken his place amongst perfect strangers, and been estimated by the claims of his own individuality? Is it not this which gives the almost ecstasy of our first tour—our first journey? There are none to say, “Who is this Potts that gives himself these airs?” “What pretension has he to say this, or order that?” “What would old Peter say if he saw his son to-day?” with all the other “What has the world come tos?” and “What are we to see nexts?” I say it is with a glorious sense of independence that one sees himself emancipated from all these restraints, and recognizes his freedom to be that which nature has made him.
As I sat on Lord Keldrum's left—Father Dyke was on his right—was I in any real quality other than I ever am? Was my nature different, my voice, my manner, my social tone, as I received all the bland attentions of my courteous host? And yet, in my heart of hearts, I felt that if it were known to that polite company I was the son of Peter Potts, 'pothecary, all my conversational courage would have failed me. I would not have dared to assert fifty things I now declared, nor vouched for a hundred that I as assuredly guaranteed. If I had had to carry about me traditions of the shop in Mary's Abbey, the laboratory, and the rest of it, how could I have had the nerve to discuss any of the topics on which I now pronounced so authoritatively? And yet, these were all accidents of my existence—no more me than was the color of his whiskers mine who vaccinated me for cow-pock. The man Potts was himself through all; he was neither compounded of senna and salts, nor amalgamated with sarsaparilla and the acids; but by the cruel laws of a harsh conventionality it was decreed otherwise, and the trade of the father descends to the son in every estimate of all he does and says and thinks. The converse of the proposition I was now to feel in the success I obtained in this company. I was as the Germans would say, “Der Herr Potts selbst, nicht nach seinen Begebenheiten”—the man Potts, not the creature of his belongings.
The man thus freed from his “antecedents,” and owning no “relatives,” feels like one to whom a great, a most unlimited, credit has been opened, in matter of opinion. Not reduced to fashion his sentiments by some supposed standard becoming his station, he roams at will over the broad prairie of life, enough if he can show cause why he says this or thinks that, without having to defend himself for his parentage, and the place he was