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A Rolling Stone, Vol. I

Chapter VI

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Chapter VI.

Thou Lett'st Thy Fortune Sleep.
‘Mancherlei hast du versaümet;
Statt zu handeln hast vertraümet.
Statt zu denken hast geschwiegen;
Sollest wandern, bliebest liegen.’

According to the almanacs of the country the New Zealand summer begins with December and ends with February. But almanacs, though pretty sure in regard to the changes of the moon, have never been safe guides in matters relating to those of the weather. Now, in that part of New Zealand with which this story has most to do, there are only two well-defined seasons—a hot one, and one which, though it is not cold, is damp enough to satisfy any worshipper at the altars of Jupiter Pluvius. What are called spring and autumn are at the best unsatisfactory compromises, so uncertain in their duration and capricious in their moods, that any morning we may be surprised by a ready-made summer or winter.

On a day late in January, therefore, it was midsummer, the sun burnt fiercely in the brilliant sky, and the thirsty land waited in vain for cool and page 68 refreshing showers. In the sun-baked town, people crept about under umbrellas, and sought the shade whenever practicable. Business men arrayed themselves in vesture of the palest hues and the flimsiest texture, and warded off sunstroke with helmets of purest white. Very limp and languid seemed these knights-errant of the pavement, and trade also was generally allowed to be in a limp and languid condition, perhaps as a natural consequence.

In such weather who that was not bound to the wheel of business would stay in town? In the country, amidst cool greenery and pure breezes, summer was queen. There, one would not wish for a ray of sunshine less, or sigh for rain, which, if it came, would fall on ripe but ungarnered harvests. The blue serenity of the heavens brooded over a land blessed with an abundance beyond that of former years. Seldom had the stooks stood so closely together in the wheat-fields. A week ago those fields were filled from side to side with the standing corn, even with the fences, and rippling in the wind like the waves of the sea. On most farms the reaping machines were now at work, and the corn was falling in thick swathes of gleaming yellow. Ah, no! rain is not wanted here. The cattle may low for it at night, but the farmer views clouds in the sky with an anxious gaze, and his bad dream of the season is one that pictures a half-thatched stack and a pouring rain.

Thus business, that was languid in the town, in page 69 the country was remarkably brisk. The laziest fellow that can call himself a farmer will make some show of working at harvest, and try to delude himself and his neighbours into the belief that he is an industrious man. The farmer who works all the year round will, at this time, positively slave. In such a time, also, labourers are expected to be animated with some portion of their master's spirit, and to emulate his exertions. Woe to them, if they do not, and double woe to the master; for, in this paradise of hirelings, high wages are meted out to the lazy as well as to the diligent.

It is not too much to affirm that, at the hour of eleven on this January morn, there was but one unemployed person in the whole of a certain agricultural district for which a name need not be invented. This person seemed to glory in his idleness. He was walking on the high road so leisurely that it was plain he had no thought of passing time, and every now and then he lingered by the way to admire the pleasant rural scenery, or perhaps to survey the toilers around him, with all the satisfaction which the sight of his fellow-creatures mightily exerting themselves never fails to impart to an idler.

The idler was an acquaintance of ours, the accomplished vagrant of a previous chapter. Since the last time of meeting he had not risen in the world. A little more wayworn and shabby, that was all the eye could mark. His face was as untroubled as ever, though he knew that the page 70 contents of his purse had wasted away to an only shilling.

We have all heard of those wonderfully determined persons who laid the foundation of a fortune on a shilling, a sixpence, or some other coin of trifling value. Men who have made their fortunes like to tell us how little they began with. But, generally speaking, it will be found that their capital was larger than they imagined. No man knows exactly how much he is worth till he has tried with all his might to find it out, and the greater part of mankind die without making the discovery. If, as an ingenious calculator has demonstrated, the commonest, most ignorant drudge is worth between two and three hundred pounds to his country, it follows that he is worth a very many sixpences and shillings to himself. What ought not a man to be worth when, besides rude health and strength, such ponderous matters as talent and ability are thrown into the scale? All things are, or ought to be possible to the power of the will; nothing is so often bound in fetters and chains. The mind without energy is in worse case than a ship without a rudder. Poor, weak, and impotent folk—doubting, unstable, and faithless, are they whose barks founder on life's ocean.

The vagrant continued on his way. The hot, glaring white road made the fields look so cool and pleasant in comparison. He had walked that way before. Then, the orchards had blushed with pink and white, the grass had glittered in the sun with page 71 emerald sheen, and the scent of blossoming clover had filled the air. Now, with a careless hand, Summer had strewn her gifts over the land. Rosy fruit and golden grain were everywhere. It was a scene of the richest plenty that his eye rested on, and he felt like a poor stranger, face to face with want in the midst of abundance.

A man whom he met on the road asked him if he wanted work. There was plenty, if he did, he informed him. No one had spoken to him of such a thing the first time he had passed that way. He knew the reason why. There is a great deal to be learnt in the Philosophy of Clothes. Most persons believe in the respectability of a good coat. He had not altered, but his clothes had, and therefore it was small wonder people should think he belonged to the labouring class, or haply to that lower class which will not labour.

On and on he went. Any beggar that had entreated him, any pretty child that had smiled in his face might have gained the whole of his fortune, for it seemed too small a matter to be parsimonious about. The words of a ballad would come into his mind, and over and over again they recurred to him, as familiar verses will, with a teasing persistency.

‘One remembered shilling
Was my only wealth;
But my hand was willing,
I had youth and health,
page 72 Fancies full of riches,
And a heart of grace,
And hopes, the lovely witches,
That looked me in the face.’

He could not quite say that. Hope had not been with him of late. Of fancies he had enough; the pleasures of the imagination were the best that were left to him. Some years ago, when shillings were plentiful, he had been fond of this song. It seemed ridiculously false sentiment now. Written, most probably, by a man who had never been reduced to the delights of a single shilling proprietor, and, in nine cases out of ten, admired and sung by those who systematically wasted their shillings. It was very nice to believe that—

‘Hand for honest labour,
Head to hope the best,
Heart to love my neighbour,
Faith for all the rest.
These, and power to use them
Are the wealth I hold,
And fool I'd be to lose them
For all Australia's gold.’

But it didn't hold good in the way of the world. The world was apt to judge a man by the amount of substantial wealth he owned, not by the invisible and unknown quantity he might carry about in his heart or his head. The world had no pity for failures; no consolation for the vanquished. It worshipped success; the crime of misfortune it never forgave.

page 73

He never expected to regain the position from which he had fallen. Ambition cannot exist without hope, and hope and he had parted company. If ever there was a man who cared for nothing beyond the passing present he had sunk into that condition. Once there had been those for whom he would gladly have worked and struggled. He could be of no use to them now; a barrier lay between him and them for evermore. And once he had had his youthful dreams of being and doing something which should make his name to be honoured and held in remembrance. Alas! he had disgraced that name. The past had its bitter memories of failure and error; of a lost home and friends. He had made up his mind that the future had nothing for him—nothing worth waiting for; nothing to work for beyond that daily bread for which the humblest toiler strove.

He had gone through life in a haphazard fashion for some years; at times working steadily, then roaming about from place to place until his means were gone. He could work. He might have made the same boast as that with which the vain and accomplished Madame de Genlis asserted herself to be skilled in a multiplicity of trades. A thorough knowledge of one, and a determination to follow it, would have availed him more than all these smatterings. But as yet he had found it easy to live by one or all of them in turn.

He had thought of nothing but sightseeing page 74 when first he found himself in New Zealand; he could not rest till he had seen it all. He worked his passage to Tasmania, going as an engineer for the trip—engineering was one of his trades. There he strayed into quite a new path of life. He painted his way through the charming woodland and river scenery of the country. The wandering artist, who was often found by other ramblers sketching on the banks of some stream deep in the woods, and who painted wonderfully fascinating pictures, soon attracted attention. He sold his pictures, which had been produced not in the hope of gain, but merely for love of the task, and for a time was rich. But he did not find liberal patrons everywhere. The door that had seemed to open before him closed again. He was disheartened—to his shame be it spoken; he must wander again in search of fresh adventures.

Then he knew the sun-scorched arid Australian plains. From station to station, willing to help in any way, a pleasant workfellow, a light-hearted companion, carrying his precious violin with him, inexhaustible in song and story, he came to be known and liked over a wide stretch of country. He made friends, and again and again these would have taken him by the hand and guided him into a better way of life. But something—there was always something that prevented it. Misfortune seemed to have set her heart upon him. There were whisperers there as well as in other parts, and page 75 whisperers have always been renowned for separating friends. One whisperer told another what some one had told him of the circumstances which had brought this gentleman's son so low in the world, and all were offended, and he was shamed. He might be wrong and foolish; he might be morbidly sensitive; but he could not endure this. What! had he dared to hope it might be forgotten? It followed him even here; it found him out under the disguise of an assumed name. Had it been slander he might have defied it; but, unhappily, it was the truth, distorted and exaggerated though it might be, and he could not fight against that. Humbled and abased he hid himself once more from those who pitied and would have helped him. From that time he had been what he was now—content to submit to what he called his fate.

‘I say you there, open that gate. Come, come! don't keep us waiting.’

The wayfarer had been so lost in thought that he had not heard the approach of two riders, a lady and a gentleman, cantering softly over the grass by the roadside towards a gateway in the hawthorn hedge. They reined up their horses opposite to this gate, and it seemed strange to the gentleman, a person of pink complexion, flaxen hair, and very youthful aspect, that the only human being in sight should not immediately rush to open it. So his manner was imperious, not to say discourteous.

‘These country fellows are so slow and lumber- page 76 ing,’ he said impatiently, as his horse, whose temper likewise seemed chafed, fidgeted under him, resenting the tight rein and heavy hand of his master.

The lady was closely veiled, but her slight smile was visible to the other person present, if not to her companion. ‘How very fortunate there should be someone here,’ she said. ‘I suppose you find it inconvenient when no slow and lumbering countryman is at hand to open gates.’

Randall now advanced, with no appearance of that delighted alacrity which the gentleman desired from him, and opened the gate. The lady said ‘Thank you,’ as she rode through. Her companion remarked, in a surly tone, ‘You might have been a little quicker,’ and essayed to follow the other rider. But the gate was closed again, the fastener replaced, and the disobliging ‘country fellow’ passed on.

‘Well, this is kind!’ said the astonished gentleman left on the road. ‘Colonial cheek all over! An English labourer wouldn't have dared to do such a thing.’

He tugged at the fastener, but partly because anger and impatience made him awkward, and partly because it was a newly-patented American invention, it remained immovable. It was not easily opened even by a person on foot, and he soon found that he could not open it while on horseback. But, although the man who had shut the gate in his face was only a paltry fellow, he was not going to let him have the pleasure of seeing page 77 that the unmannerly trick had put him to the trouble of dismounting. And, if the truth must be told, he dared not jump down there and then. Though colonial by birth, this gentleman was not so well skilled in horsemanship as most colonial youths, probably because he had been educated abroad. Whatever he had learnt there, he had not learnt to ride well; and yet for some mysterious reason he would ride spirited, almost unmanageable horses. Out of mercy, perhaps, they did not throw him, but they did very much as they liked in other respects. Now he might get off, but there was no telling when his horse, which knew his weakness only too well, would allow him to get on again. Doubtless it could be done in time, with various displays of agility, and possibly several little mishaps, which he would not have seen even by the fellow on the road, and to be seen by the lady who was smiling at him now from the other side of the hedge—what mortification!

There was only one way. Noticing a low place in the hedge, where there were few thorns, and only a two-railed fence behind, he urged his horse to the jump. There was a great crash, and horse and rider came down heavily on the other side, amidst a small whirlwind of bits of decayed wood, the top rail having been splintered into fragments. Fortunately the horse alighted on its fore-feet, and the gentleman, by a miracle, as he thought, remained in the saddle. He felt a little proud of the jump page 78 (it was his first), but his temper was ruffled again by the lady's evident amusement. She had got beyond smiling this time, and actually laughed— good, wholesome, unaffected laughter, which was quite beyond her control. And then, like a lady, when she saw that her friend was annoyed, she made haste to say something very pleasant, so that they rode away on good terms with one another. The lonely person on the road returned to the gate, and leaning upon it with folded arms, looked after the two riders long and earnestly. ‘I know that face,’ he said to himself; ‘I knew it well once.’