Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/419

 406 the next moment that it was a fabrication and a trap: but he flung away the roses.

As idle as a painted cavalier upon a painted drop-scene, the figure of Mr. John Raikes was to be observed leaning with crossed legs against a shady pillar of the Green Dragon; eyeing alternately, with an indifference he did not care to conceal, the assiduous pecking in the dust of some cocks and hens that had strayed from the yard of the inn, and the sleepy blinking in the sun of an old dog at his feet: nor did Evan’s appearance discompose the sad sedateness of his demeanour.

“Yes; I am here still,” he answered Evan’s greeting, with a flaccid gesture. “Don’t excite me too much. A little at a time. I can’t bear it!”

“How now? What is it now, Jack?” said Evan.

Mr. Raikes pointed at the dog. “I’ve made a bet with myself he won’t wag his tail within the next ten minutes. The tail is that animal’s tongue. ’Tis thus we talk. I beg of you, Harrington, to remain silent for both our sakes.”

Evan was induced to look at the dog, and the dog looked at him, and gently moved his tail.

“I’ve lost!” cried Jack, in languid anguish. “He’s getting excited. He’ll go mad. We’re not accustomed to this in Fallowfield.”

“You’ve been lonely, I suppose, Jack?”

“Have I? Oh, that’s it!” Mr. Raikes ironically laughed, in the pride of a malady that defied penetration.

“Wake up, old boy! wake up!” said Evan.

“The cock bids me do the same at two, punctually every morning, and I comply!” returned Jack. “It’s afternoon, now!”

Evan dismounted and gave him a shake, which he endured with the stolidity of a dummy.

“Why, where’s old Jack? I’ve news for you. Jack, capital news.”

“Then if you don’t want to see me burst—give it me by degrees,” Mr. Raikes roared out the latter part of his sentence. “Instil it. Don’t remove my brain-pan and put it all in at once.”

“The news is this,” said Evan; but his attention was distracted by the sight of Rose’s maid, Polly Wheedle, splendidly bonneted, who slipped past them into the inn; after repulsing Jack’s careless attempt to caress her chin; which caused Jack to tell Evan that he could not get on without the society of intellectual women.

Evan called a boy to hold the horse.

“Have you seen her before, Jack?”

In the tones of tragedy Jack replied: “Once. Your pensioner up-stairs she comes to visit. I do suspect there kinship is betwixt them. Ay! one might swear them sisters. Plainly, Harrington, her soul is prosaic. I have told her I am fain, but that fate is against it. She has advised me to get a new hat before I consider the question. These country creatures are all for show! She’s a relief to the monotony of the petrified street—the old man with the brown-gaitered legs and the doubled-up old woman with the crutch. Heigho! I heard the London horn this morning.”

Evan thrust the letter in his hands, telling him to read and form an opinion on it, and went in the track of Miss Wheedle.

Mr. Raikes resumed his station against the pillar, and held the letter out on a level with his thigh. Acting (as it was his nature to do off the stage), he had not exaggerated his profound melancholy. Of a light soil and with a tropical temperament, he had exhausted all lively recollection of his brilliant career, and, in the short time since Evan had parted with him, sunk abjectly down into the belief that he was fixed in Fallowfield for life. His spirit pined for agitation and events. The horn of the London coach had sounded distant metropolitan glories in the ears of the exile in rustic parts.

Sighing heavily, Jack opened the letter, in simple obedience to the wishes of his friend; for he would have preferred to stand contemplating his own state of hopeless stagnation. The sceptical expression he put on when he had read the letter through must not deceive us. Mr. John Raikes had dreamed of a beneficent eccentric old gentleman for many years: one against whom, haply, he had bumped in a crowded thoroughfare, and had with cordial politeness begged pardon of; had then picked up his walking-stick; restored it, venturing a witty remark; retired, accidentally dropping his card-case; subsequently, to his astonishment and gratification, receiving a pregnant missive from that old gentleman’s lawyer. Or it so happened, that Mr. Raikes met the old gentleman at a tavern, and, by the exercise of a signal dexterity, relieved him from a bone in his throat, and reluctantly imparted his address on issuing from the said tavern. Or perhaps it was a lonely highway where the old gentleman walked, and Mr. John Raikes had his name in the papers for a deed of heroism, nor was man ungrateful. Since he had eaten up his uncle, this old gentleman of his dreams walked in town and country—only, and alas! Mr. Raikes could never encounter him in the flesh. The muscles of his face, therefore, are no index to the real feelings of Mr. Raikes when he had thoroughly mastered the contents of the letter, and reflected that the dream of his luck—his angelic old gentleman—had gone and wantonly bestowed himself upon Evan Harrington, instead of the expectant and far worthier John Raikes. Worthier inasmuch as he gave him credence for existing long ere he knew of him, and beheld him manifest.

Mr. Raikes retreated to the vacant parlour of the Green Dragon, and there Evan found him staring at the unfolded letter, his head between his cramped fists, with a desperate contraction of his mouth. Evan was troubled by what he had seen up-stairs, and did not speak till Jack looked up and said, “Oh, there you are.”

“Well, what do you think, Jack?”

“Yes—it’s all right,” Mr. Raikes rejoined in most matter-of-course tone, and then he stepped to the window, and puffed a very deep breath indeed, and glanced from the straight line of the street to the heavens, with whom, injured as he was, he felt more at home now that he knew them capable of miracles.

“Is it a bad joke played upon me?” said Evan.

Mr. Raikes upset a chair. “It’s quite childish. You’re made a gentleman for life, and you ask if it’s a joke played upon you! It’s perfectly maddening! There—there goes my hat!”