The Professor (7 page)

"Not till I have had something to eat; I can thank nobody while I
am so famished."

I rang the bell and ordered tea and some cold meat.

"Cold meat!" exclaimed Hunsden, as the servant closed the door,
"what a glutton you are; man! Meat with tea! you'll die of
eating too much."

"No, Mr. Hunsden, I shall not." I felt a necessity for
contradicting him; I was irritated with hunger, and irritated at
seeing him there, and irritated at the continued roughness of his
manner.

"It is over-eating that makes you so ill-tempered," said he.

"How do you know?" I demanded. "It is like you to give a
pragmatical opinion without being acquainted with any of the
circumstances of the case; I have had no dinner."

What I said was petulant and snappish enough, and Hunsden only
replied by looking in my face and laughing.

"Poor thing!" he whined, after a pause. "It has had no dinner,
has it? What! I suppose its master would not let it come home.
Did Crimsworth order you to fast by way of punishment, William!"

"No, Mr. Hunsden. Fortunately at this sulky juncture, tea, was
brought in, and I fell to upon some bread and butter and cold
beef directly. Having cleared a plateful, I became so far
humanized as to intimate to Mr. Hunsden "that he need not sit
there staring, but might come to the table and do as I did, if he
liked."

"But I don't like in the least," said he, and therewith he
summoned the servant by a fresh pull of the bell-rope, and
intimated a desire to have a glass of toast-and-water. "And some
more coal," he added; "Mr. Crimsworth shall keep a good fire
while I stay."

His orders being executed, he wheeled his chair round to the
table, so as to be opposite me.

"Well," he proceeded. "You are out of work, I suppose."

"Yes," said I; and not disposed to show the satisfaction I felt
on this point, I, yielding to the whim of the moment, took up the
subject as though I considered myself aggrieved rather than
benefited by what had been done. "Yes—thanks to you, I am.
Crimsworth turned me off at a minute's notice, owing to some
interference of yours at a public meeting, I understand."

"Ah! what! he mentioned that? He observed me signalling the
lads, did he? What had he to say about his friend Hunsden
—anything sweet?"

"He called you a treacherous villain."

"Oh, he hardly knows me yet! I'm one of those shy people who
don't come out all at once, and he is only just beginning to make
my acquaintance, but he'll find I've some good qualities
—excellent ones! The Hunsdens were always unrivalled at
tracking a rascal; a downright, dishonourable villain is their
natural prey—they could not keep off him wherever they met him;
you used the word pragmatical just now—that word is the property
of our family; it has been applied to us from generation to
generation; we have fine noses for abuses; we scent a scoundrel a
mile off; we are reformers born, radical reformers; and it was
impossible for me to live in the same town with Crimsworth, to
come into weekly contact with him, to witness some of his conduct
to you (for whom personally I care nothing; I only consider the
brutal injustice with which he violated your natural claim to
equality)—I say it was impossible for me to be thus situated and
not feel the angel or the demon of my race at work within me. I
followed my instinct, opposed a tyrant, and broke a chain."

Now this speech interested me much, both because it brought out
Hunsden's character, and because it explained his motives; it
interested me so much that I forgot to reply to it, and sat
silent, pondering over a throng of ideas it had suggested.

"Are you grateful to me?" he asked, presently.

In fact I was grateful, or almost so, and I believe I half liked
him at the moment, notwithstanding his proviso that what he had
done was not out of regard for me. But human nature is perverse.
Impossible to answer his blunt question in the affirmative, so I
disclaimed all tendency to gratitude, and advised him if he
expected any reward for his championship, to look for it in a
better world, as he was not likely to meet with it here. In
reply he termed me "a dry-hearted aristocratic scamp," whereupon
I again charged him with having taken the bread out of my mouth.

"Your bread was dirty, man!" cried Hunsden—"dirty and
unwholesome! It came through the hands of a tyrant, for I tell
you Crimsworth is a tyrant,—a tyrant to his workpeople, a tyrant
to his clerks, and will some day be a tyrant to his wife."

"Nonsense! bread is bread, and a salary is a salary. I've lost
mine, and through your means."

"There's sense in what you say, after all," rejoined Hunsden. "I
must say I am rather agreeably surprised to hear you make so
practical an observation as that last. I had imagined now, from
my previous observation of your character, that the sentimental
delight you would have taken in your newly regained liberty
would, for a while at least, have effaced all ideas of
forethought and prudence. I think better of you for looking
steadily to the needful."

"Looking steadily to the needful! How can I do otherwise? I
must live, and to live I must have what you call 'the needful,'
which I can only get by working. I repeat it, you have taken my
work from me."

"What do you mean to do?" pursued Hunsden coolly. "You have
influential relations; I suppose they'll soon provide you with
another place."

"Influential relations? Who? I should like to know their
names."

"The Seacombes."

"Stuff! I have cut them,"

Hunsden looked at me incredulously.

"I have," said I, "and that definitively."

"You must mean they have cut you, William."

"As you please. They offered me their patronage on condition of
my entering the Church; I declined both the terms and the
recompence; I withdrew from my cold uncles, and preferred
throwing myself into my elder brother's arms, from whose
affectionate embrace I am now torn by the cruel intermeddling of
a stranger—of yourself, in short."

I could not repress a half-smile as I said this; a similar
demi-manifestation of feeling appeared at the same moment on
Hunsden's lips.

"Oh, I see!" said he, looking into my eyes, and it was evident he
did see right down into my heart. Having sat a minute or two
with his chin resting on his hand, diligently occupied in the
continued perusal of my countenance, he went on:-

"Seriously, have you then nothing to expect from the Seacombes?"

"Yes, rejection and repulsion. Why do you ask me twice? How can
hands stained with the ink of a counting-house, soiled with the
grease of a wool-warehouse, ever again be permitted to come into
contact with aristocratic palms?"

"There would be a difficulty, no doubt; still you are such a
complete Seacombe in appearance, feature, language, almost
manner, I wonder they should disown you."

"They have disowned me; so talk no more about it."

"Do you regret it, William?"

"No."

Why not, lad?"

"Because they are not people with whom I could ever have had any
sympathy."

"I say you are one of them."

"That merely proves that you know nothing at all about it; I am
my mother's son, but not my uncles' nephew."

"Still—one of your uncles is a lord, though rather an obscure
and not a very wealthy one, and the other a right honourable:
you should consider worldly interest."

"Nonsense, Mr. Hunsden. You know or may know that even had I
desired to be submissive to my uncles, I could not have stooped
with a good enough grace ever to have won their favour. I should
have sacrificed my own comfort and not have gained their
patronage in return."

"Very likely—so you calculated your wisest plan was to follow
your own devices at once?"

"Exactly. I must follow my own devices—I must, till the day of
my death; because I can neither comprehend, adopt, nor work out
those of other people."

Hunsden yawned. "Well," said he, "in all this, I see but one
thing clearly-that is, that the whole affair is no business of
mine. "He stretched himself and again yawned. "I wonder what
time it is," he went on: "I have an appointment for seven
o'clock."

"Three quarters past six by my watch."

"Well, then I'll go." He got up. "You'll not meddle with trade
again?" said he, leaning his elbow on the mantelpiece.

"No; I think not."

"You would be a fool if you did. Probably, after all, you'll
think better of your uncles' proposal and go into the Church."

"A singular regeneration must take place in my whole inner and
outer man before I do that. A good clergyman is one of the best
of men."

"Indeed! Do you think so?" interrupted Hunsden, scoffingly.

"I do, and no mistake. But I have not the peculiar points which
go to make a good clergyman; and rather than adopt a profession
for which I have no vocation, I would endure extremities of
hardship from poverty."

"You're a mighty difficult customer to suit. You won't be a
tradesman or a parson; you can't be a lawyer, or a doctor, or a
gentleman, because you've no money. I'd recommend you to
travel."

"What! without money?"

"You must travel in search of money, man. You can speak French-
-with a vile English accent, no doubt—still, you can speak it.
Go on to the Continent, and see what will turn up for you there."

"God knows I should like to go!" exclaimed I with involuntary
ardour.

"Go: what the deuce hinders you? You may get to Brussels, for
instance, for five or six pounds, if you know how to manage with
economy."

"Necessity would teach me if I didn't."

"Go, then, and let your wits make a way for you when you get
there. I know Brussels almost as well as I know X—, and I am
sure it would suit such a one as you better than London."

"But occupation, Mr. Hunsden! I must go where occupation is to
be had; and how could I get recommendation, or introduction, or
employment at Brussels?"

"There speaks the organ of caution. You hate to advance a step
before you know every inch of the way. You haven't a sheet of
paper and a pen-and-ink?"

"I hope so," and I produced writing materials with alacrity; for
I guessed what he was going to do. He sat down, wrote a few
lines, folded, sealed, and addressed a letter, and held it out to
me.

"There, Prudence, there's a pioneer to hew down the first rough
difficulties of your path. I know well enough, lad, you are not
one of those who will run their neck into a noose without seeing
how they are to get it out again, and you're right there. A
reckless man is my aversion, and nothing should ever persuade me
to meddle with the concerns of such a one. Those who are
reckless for themselves are generally ten times more so for their
friends."

"This is a letter of introduction, I suppose?" said I, taking the
epistle.

"Yes. With that in your pocket you will run no risk of finding
yourself in a state of absolute destitution, which, I know, you
will regard as a degradation—so should I, for that matter. The
person to whom you will present it generally has two or three
respectable places depending upon his recommendation."

"That will just suit me," said I.

"Well, and where's your gratitude?" demanded Mr. Hunsden; "don't
you know how to say 'Thank you?'"

"I've fifteen pounds and a watch, which my godmother, whom I
never saw, gave me eighteen years ago," was my rather irrelevant
answer; and I further avowed myself a happy man, and professed
that I did not envy any being in Christendom.

"But your gratitude?"

"I shall be off presently, Mr. Hunsden—to-morrow, if all be
well: I'll not stay a day longer in X— than I'm obliged."

"Very good—but it will be decent to make due acknowledgment for
the assistance you have received; be quick! It is just going to
strike seven: I'm waiting to be thanked."

"Just stand out of the way, will you, Mr. Hunsden: I want a key
there is on the corner of the mantelpiece. I'll pack my
portmanteau before I go to bed "

The house clock struck seven.

"The lad is a heathen," said Hunsden, and taking his hat from a
sideboard, he left the room, laughing to himself. I had half an
inclination to follow him: I really intended to leave X— the
next morning, and should certainly not have another opportunity
of bidding him good-bye. The front door banged to.

"Let him go," said I, "we shall meet again some day."

READER, perhaps you were never in Belgium? Haply you don't know
the physiognomy of the country? You have not its lineaments
defined upon your memory, as I have them on mine?

Three—nay four—pictures line the four-walled cell where are
stored for me the records of the past. First, Eton. All in that
picture is in far perspective, receding, diminutive; but freshly
coloured, green, dewy, with a spring sky, piled with glittering
yet showery clouds; for my childhood was not all sunshine—it had
its overcast, its cold, its stormy hours. Second, X—, huge,
dingy; the canvas cracked and smoked; a yellow sky, sooty clouds;
no sun, no azure; the verdure of the suburbs blighted and
sullied—a very dreary scene.

Third, Belgium; and I will pause before this landscape. As to the
fourth, a curtain covers it, which I may hereafter withdraw, or
may not, as suits my convenience and capacity. At any rate, for
the present it must hang undisturbed. Belgium! name unromantic
and unpoetic, yet name that whenever uttered has in my ear a
sound, in my heart an echo, such as no other assemblage of
syllables, however sweet or classic, can produce. Belgium! I
repeat the word, now as I sit alone near midnight. It stirs my
world of the past like a summons to resurrection; the graves
unclose, the dead are raised; thoughts, feelings, memories that
slept, are seen by me ascending from the clods—haloed most of
them—but while I gaze on their vapoury forms, and strive to
ascertain definitely their outline, the sound which wakened them
dies, and they sink, each and all, like a light wreath of mist,
absorbed in the mould, recalled to urns, resealed in monuments.
Farewell, luminous phantoms!