Silvis, ubi passim
Palantes error certo de tramite pellit,
Ille sinistrorsum, hic dextrorsum abit; unus utrique
Error, sed variis illudit partibus.—HORACE.
[“Wandering in those woods where error evermore forces life’s
stragglers from the beaten path,—this one deflects to the left,
his fellow chooses the exact contrary. The fault is all the same
in each, but it excuses itself by a thousand different reasons.”]
As Wolfe strode away from the inn, he muttered to himself,—
“Can it be that Mordaunt has suddenly grown rich? If so, I rejoice at it. True, that he was not for our cause, but he had the spirit and the heart which belonged to it. Had he not been bred among the prejudices of birth, or had he lived in stormier times, he might have been the foremost champion of freedom. As it is, I rather lament than condemn. Yet I would fain see him once more. Perhaps prosperity may have altered his philosophy. But can he, indeed, be the same Mordaunt of whom that trading itinerant spoke? Can he have risen to the pernicious eminence of a landed aristocrat? Well, it is worth the journey; for if he have power in the neighbourhood, I am certain that he will exert it for our protection; and, at the worst, I shall escape from the idle words of my compatriots. Oh! if it were possible that the advocates could debase the glory of the cause, how long since should I have flinched from the hardship and the service to which my life is devoted! Self-interest; Envy, that snarls at all above it, without even the beast’s courage to bite; Folly, that knows not the substance of Freedom, but loves the glitter of its name; Fear, that falters; Crime, that seeks in licentiousness an excuse; Disappointment, only craving occasion to rail; Hatred; Sourness, boasting of zeal, but only venting the blackness of rancour and evil passion,—all these make our adherents, and give our foes the handle and the privilege to scorn and to despise. But man chooses the object, and Fate only furnishes the tools. Happy for our posterity, that when the object is once gained, the frailty of the tools will be no more!”
Thus soliloquizing, the republican walked rapidly onwards, till a turn of the road brought before his eye the form of Mr. Brown, seated upon a little rough pony, and “whistling as he went for want of thought.”
Wolfe quickened his pace, and soon overtook him.
“You must forgive me, my good man,” said he, soothingly; “I meant not to impeach your honesty or your calling. Perhaps I was hasty and peevish; and, in sad earnest, I have much to tease and distract me.”
“Well, sir, well,” answered Mr. Brown, greatly mollified; “I am sure no Christian can be more forgiving than I am; and, since you are sorry for what you were pleased to say, let us think no more about it. But touching the umbrella, Mr. Wolfe, have you a mind for that interesting and useful relic of the late Lady Waddilove?”
“Not at present, I thank you,” said Wolfe, mildly; “I care little for the inclemencies of the heavens, and you may find many to whom your proffered defence from them may be more acceptable. But tell me if the Mr. Mordaunt you mentioned was ever residing in town, and in very indifferent circumstances?”
“Probably he was,” said the cautious Brown, who, as we before said, had been bribed into silence, and who now grievously repented that passion had betrayed him into the imprudence of candour; “but I really do not busy myself about other people’s affairs. ‘Brown,’ said the late Lady Waddilove to me, ‘Brown, you are a good creature, and never talk of what does not concern you.’ Those, Mr. Wolfe, were her ladyship’s own words.”
“As you please,” said the reformer, who did not want shrewdness, and saw that his point was already sufficiently gained; “as you please. And now, to change the subject, I suppose we shall have your attendance at the meeting at W—— to-morrow?”
“Ay,” replied the worthy Brown: “I thought it likely I should meet many of my old customers in the town on such a busy occasion; so I went a little out of my way home to London, in order to spend a night or two there. Indeed, I have some valuable articles for Mr. Glumford, the magistrate, who will be in attendance to-morrow.”
“They say,” observed Wolfe, “that the magistrates, against all law, right, and custom, will dare to interfere with and resist the meeting. Think you report says true?”
“Nay,” returned Brown, prudently, “I cannot exactly pretend to decide the question: all I know is that Squire Glumford said to me, at his own house, five days ago, as he was drawing on his boots, ‘Brown,’ said he, ‘Brown, mark my words, we shall do for those rebellious dogs!’”
“Did he say so?” muttered Wolfe, between his teeth. “Oh, for the old times, or those yet to come, when our answer would have been, or shall be, the sword!”
“And you know,” pursued Mr. Brown, “that Lord Ulswater and his regiment are in town, and have even made great preparations against the meeting a week ago.”
“I have heard this,” said Wolfe; “but I cannot think that any body of armed men dare interrupt or attack a convocation of peaceable subjects, met solely to petition Parliament against famine for themselves and slavery for their children.”
“Famine!” quoth Mr. Brown. “Indeed it is very true, very! times are dreadfully bad. I can scarcely get my own living; Parliament certainly ought to do something: but you must forgive me, Mr. Wolfe; it may be dangerous to talk with you on these matters; and, now I think of it, the sooner I get to W—— the better; good morning; a shower’s coming on. You won’t have the umbrella, then?”
“They dare not,” said Wolfe to himself, “no, no,—they dare not attack us; they dare not;” and clenching his fist, he pursued, with a quicker step, and a more erect mien, his solitary way.
When he was about the distance of three miles from W——, he was overtaken by a middle-aged man of a frank air and a respectable appearance. “Good day, sir,” said he; “we seem to be journeying the same way: will it be against your wishes to join company?”
Wolfe assented, and the stranger resumed:—
“I suppose, sir, you intend to be present at the meeting at W—— to-morrow? There will be an immense concourse, and the entrance of a new detachment of soldiers, and the various reports of the likelihood of their interference with the assembly, make it an object of some interest and anxiety to look forward to.”
“True, true,” said Wolfe, slowly, eying his new acquaintance with a deliberate and scrutinizing attention. “It will, indeed, be interesting to see how far an evil and hardy government will venture to encroach upon the rights of the people, which it ruins while it pretends to rule.”
“Of a truth,” rejoined the other, “I rejoice that I am no politician. I believe my spirit is as free as any cooped in the narrow dungeon of earth’s clay can well be; yet I confess that it has drawn none of its liberty from book, pamphlet, speech, or newspaper, of modern times.”
“So much the worse for you, sir,” said Wolfe, sourly: “the man who has health and education can find no excuse for supineness or indifference to that form of legislation by which his country decays or prospers.”
“Why,” said the other, gayly, “I willingly confess myself less of a patriot than a philosopher; and as long as I am harmless, I strive very little to be useful, in a public capacity; in a private one, as a father, a husband, and a neighbour, I trust I am not utterly without my value.”
“Pish!” cried Wolfe; “let no man who forgets his public duties prate of his private merits. I tell you, man, that he who can advance by a single hair’s-breadth the happiness or the freedom of mankind has done more to save his own soul than if he had paced every step of the narrow circle of his domestic life with the regularity of clockwork.”
“You may be right,” quoth the stranger, carelessly; “but I look on things in the mass, and perhaps see only the superficies, while you, I perceive already, are a lover of the abstract. For my part, Harry Fielding’s two definitions seem to me excellent. ‘Patriot,—a candidate for a place!’ ‘Politics,—the art of getting such a place!’ Perhaps, sir, as you seem a man of education, you remember the words of our great novelist.”
“No!” answered Wolfe, a little contemptuously; “I cannot say that I burden my memory with the deleterious witticisms and shallow remarks of writers of fancy. It has been a mighty and spreading evil to the world that the vain fictions of the poets or the exaggerations of novelists have been hitherto so welcomed and extolled. Better had it been for us if the destruction of the lettered wealth at Alexandria had included all the lighter works which have floated, from their very levity, down the stream of time, an example and a corruption to the degraded geniuses of later days.”
The eyes of the stranger sparkled. “Why, you outgoth the Goth!” exclaimed he, sharply. “But you surely preach against what you have not studied. Confess that you are but slightly acquainted with Shakspeare, and Spenser, and noble Dan Chaucer. Ay, if you knew them as well as I do, you would, like me, give—
‘To hem faith and full credence, And in your heart have hem in reverence.’”
“Pish!” again muttered Wolfe; and then rejoined aloud, “It grieves me to see time so wasted, and judgment so perverted, as yours appears to have been; but it fills me with pity and surprise, as well as grief, to find that, so far from shame at the effeminacy of your studies, you appear to glory and exult in them.”
“May the Lord help me, and lighten thee,” said Cole; for it was he. “You are at least not a novelty in human wisdom, whatever you may be in character; for you are far from the only one proud of being ignorant, and pitying those who are not so.”
Wolfe darted one of his looks of fire at the speaker, who, nothing abashed, met the glance with an eye, if not as fiery, at least as bold.
“I see,” said the republican, “that we shall not agree upon the topics you have started. If you still intrude your society upon me, you will, at least, choose some other subject of conversation.”
“Pardon me,” said Cole, whose very studies, while they had excited, in their self-defence, his momentary warmth, made him habitually courteous and urbane, “pardon me for my hastiness of expression. I own myself in fault.” And, with this apology, our ex-king slid into the new topics which the scenery and the weather afforded him.
Wolfe, bent upon the object of his present mission, made some inquiries respecting Mordaunt; and though Cole only shared the uncertain information of the country gossips as to the past history of that person, yet the little he did know was sufficient to confirm the republican in his belief of Algernon’s identity; while the ex-gypsy’s account of his rank and reputation in the country made Wolfe doubly anxious to secure, if possible, his good offices and interference on behalf of the meeting. But the conversation was not always restricted to neutral and indifferent ground, but ever and anon wandered into various allusions or opinions from the one, certain to beget retort or controversy in the other.
Had we time and our reader patience, it would have been a rare and fine contrast to have noted more at large the differences of thought and opinion between the companions: each in his several way so ardent for liberty, and so impatient of the control and customs of society; each so enthusiastic for the same object, yet so coldly contemptuous to the enthusiasm of the other. The one guided only by his poetical and erratic tastes, the other solely by dreams, seeming to the world no less baseless, yet, to his own mind, bearing the name of stern judgment and inflexible truth. Both men of active and adventurous spirits, to whom forms were fetters and ceremonies odious; yet, deriving from that mutual similarity only pity for mutual perversion, they were memorable instances of the great differences congeniality itself will occasion, and of the never-ending varieties which minds, rather under the influence of imagination than judgment, will create.
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