Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/282

 24, 1860.] The hand of Mr. Raikes fell against his thigh with theatrical impressiveness.

“But how,” said Evan—“it’s the oddest thing in the world our meeting like this—how did you come here?”

“You thought me cut out for an actor—didn’t you?” asked Jack.

Evan admitted that it was a common opinion at school.

“It was a horrible delusion, Harrington! My patrimony gone, naked I sought the stage—as the needle the pole. Alas! there is no needle to that pole. I was hissed off the boards of a provincial theatre, and thus you see me!”

“Why,” said Evan, “you don’t mean to say you have been running over the downs ever since.”

Mr. Raikes punned bitterly. “No, Harrington, not in your sense. Spare me the particulars. Ruined, the last ignominy endured, I fled from the gay vistas of the Bench—for they live who would thither lead me! and determined, the day before the yesterday—what think’st thou? why to go boldly, and offer myself as Adlatus to blessed old Cudford! Yes! a little Latin is all that remains to me, and I resolved, like the man I am, to turn hie, hæc, hoc, into bread and cheese, and beer. Impute nought foreign to me, in the matter of pride.”

“Usher in our old school—poor old Jack!” exclaimed Evan.

“Lieutenant in the Cudford Academy!” the latter rejoined. “I walked the distance from London. I had my interview with the respected principal. He gave me of mutton nearest the bone, which, they say, is sweetest; and on sweet things you should not regale in excess. O utter scragginess! Endymion watched the sheep that bred that mutton! He gave me the thin beer of our boyhood, that I might the more soberly state my mission. That beer, my friend, was brewed by one who wished to form a study for pantomimic masks. He listened with the gravity which is all his own to the recital of my career; he pleasantly compared me to Phaëton, congratulated the river Thames at my not setting it on fire in my rapid descent, and extended to me the three fingers of affectionate farewell. I am the victim of my antecedents!”

Mr. Raikes uttered this with a stage groan, and rapped his breast.

“So you were compelled to go to old Cudford, and he rejected you—poor Jack!” Evan interjected commiseratingly.

“Because of my antecedents, Harrington. I laid the train in boyhood that blew me up as man. I put the case to him clearly. But what’s the use of talking to an old fellow who has been among boys all his life? All his arguments are prepositions. I told him that, as became a manly nature, I, being stripped, preferred to stand up for myself like a bare stick, rather than act the parasite—the female ivy, or the wanton hop! I joked—he smiled. Those old cocks can’t see you’re serious through a joke. What do you think! He reminded me of that night when you and I slipped out to hear about the prize-fight, and were led home from the pot-house in glory. Well! I replied to him—‘Had you educated us on beer a little stiffer in quality, sir—’ ‘Yes, yes,’ says he; ‘I see you’re the same John Raikes whom I once knew.’ I answered with a quotation: he corrected my quantity, and quoted again: I capped him. I thought I had him. ‘Glad,’ says he, ‘you bear in your head some of the fruits of my teaching.’ ‘Fruits, sir,’ says I, ‘egad! they’re more like nails than fruits; I can feel now, sir, on a portion of my person, which is anywhere but the head, your praiseworthy perseverance in knocking them in.’ There was gratitude for him, but he would treat the whole affair as a joke. ‘You an usher, a rearer of youth, Mr. Raikes? Oh, no! Oh, no!’ That was all I could get out of him. ’Gad! he might have seen that I didn’t joke with the mutton-bone. If I winced at the beer it was imperceptible. Now a man who can do that is what I call a man in earnest. But, Cudford avaunt! Here I am.”

“Yes,” said Evan, suppressing a smile. “I want to know how you came here.”

“Short is the tale, though long the way, friend Harrington. From Bodley is ten miles to Beckley. I walked them. From Beckley is fifteen miles to Fallowfield. Them I was traversing, when, lo! towards sweet eventide, a fair horsewoman riding with her groom at her horse’s heels. ‘Lady, or damsel, or sweet angel,’ says I, addressing her, as much out of the style of the needy as possible, ‘will you condescend to direct me to Fallowfield?’ ‘Are you going to the match?’ says she. I answered boldly that I was. ‘Beckley’s in,’ says she, ‘and you’ll be in time to see them out, if you cut across the downs there.’ I lifted my hat—a deperatedesperate [sic] measure, for the brim won’t bear much—but honour to women though we perish! She bowed: I cut across the downs. Ah! lovely deceiver! Had I not cut across the downs, to my ruin, once before? In fine, Harrington, old boy, I’ve been wandering among those downs for the last seven or eight hours. I was on the point of turning my back on the road for the twentieth time, I believe—when I heard your welcome vehicular music, and hailed you; and I ask you, isn’t it luck for a fellow who hasn’t got a penny in his pocket, and is as hungry as five hundred hunters, to drop on an old friend like this?”

Evan answered, briefly, “Yes.”

Mr. Raikes looked at him pacing with his head bent, and immediately went behind him and came up on the further side.

“What’s the matter?” said Evan, like one in a dream.

“I was only trying the other shoulder,” remarked his friend.

Evan pressed his hand.

“My dear Jack! pray forgive me. I have a great deal to think about. Whatever I possess I’m happy enough to share with you. I needn’t tell you that.” He paused, and inquired.inquired, [sic] “Where was it you said you met the young lady?”

“In the first place, O, Amadis! I never said she was young. You’re on the scent, I see.”

“What was she like?” said Evan, with forced gentleness.

“My dear fellow! there’s not the remotest