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CHAPTER VI - IN WHICH I GO WEST
I reached my uncle's door next morning in time to sit down
with the family to breakfast. More than three years had
intervened almost without mutation in that stationary
household, since I had sat there first, a young American
freshman, bewildered among unfamiliar dainties, Finnan
haddock, kippered salmon, baps and mutton ham, and had
wearied my mind in vain to guess what should be under the
tea-cosey. If there were any change at all, it seemed that I had
risen in the family esteem. My father's death once fittingly
referred to, with a ceremonial lengthening of Scotch upper lips
and wagging of the female head, the party launched at once
(God help me) into the more cheerful topic of my own
successes. They had been so pleased to hear such good
accounts of me; I was quite a great man now; where was that
beautiful statue of the Genius of Something or other? "You
haven't it here? not here? Really?" asks the sprightliest of my
cousins, shaking curls at me; as though it were likely I had
brought it in a cab, or kept it concealed about my person like a
birthday surprise. In the bosom of this family, unaccustomed
to the tropical nonsense of the West, it became plain the
_Sunday Herald_ and poor, blethering Pinkerton had been
accepted for their face. It is not possible to invent a
circumstance that could have more depressed me; and I am
conscious that I behaved all through that breakfast like a whipt
schoolboy.
At length, the meal and family prayers being both happily over,
I requested the favour of an interview with Uncle Adam on "the
state of my affairs." At sound of this ominous expression, the
good man's face conspicuously lengthened; and when my
grandfather, having had the proposition repeated to him (for he
was hard of hearing) announced his intention of being present
at the interview, I could not but think that Uncle Adam's
sorrow kindled into momentary irritation. Nothing, however,
but the usual grim cordiality appeared upon the surface; and we
all three passed ceremoniously to the adjoining library, a
gloomy theatre for a depressing piece of business. My
grandfather charged a clay pipe, and sat tremulously smoking
in a corner of the fireless chimney; behind him, although the
morning was both chill and dark, the window was partly open
and the blind partly down: I cannot depict what an air he had
of being out of place, like a man shipwrecked there. Uncle
Adam had his station at the business table in the midst.
Valuable rows of books looked down upon the place of torture;
and I could hear sparrows chirping in the garden, and my
sprightly cousin already banging the piano and pouring forth an
acid stream of song from the drawing-room overhead.
It was in these circumstances that, with all brevity of speech
and a certain boyish sullenness of manner, looking the while
upon the floor, I informed my relatives of my financial
situation: the amount I owed Pinkerton; the hopelessness of
any maintenance from sculpture; the career offered me in the
States; and how, before becoming more beholden to a stranger,
I had judged it right to lay the case before my family.
"I am only sorry you did not come to me at first," said Uncle
Adam. "I take the liberty to say it would have been more
decent."
"I think so too, Uncle Adam," I replied; "but you must bear in
mind I was ignorant in what light you might regard my
application."
"I hope I would never turn my back on my own flesh and
blood," he returned with emphasis; but to my anxious ear, with
more of temper than affection. "I could never forget you were
my sister's son. I regard this as a manifest duty. I have no
choice but to accept the entire responsibility of the position you
have made."
I did not know what else to do but murmur "thank you."
"Yes," he pursued, "and there is something providential in the
circumstance that you come at the right time. In my old firm
there is a vacancy; they call themselves Italian Warehousemen
now," he continued, regarding me with a twinkle of humour;
"so you may think yourself in luck: we were only grocers in my
day. I shall place you there to-morrow."
"Stop a moment, Uncle Adam," I broke in. "This is not at all
what I am asking. I ask you to pay Pinkerton, who is a poor
man. I ask you to clear my feet of debt, not to arrange my life
or any part of it."
"If I wished to be harsh, I might remind you that beggars
cannot be choosers," said my uncle; "and as to managing your
life, you have tried your own way already, and you see what
you have made of it. You must now accept the guidance of
those older and (whatever you may think of it) wiser than
yourself. All these schemes of your friend (of whom I know
nothing, by the by) and talk of openings in the West, I simply
disregard. I have no idea whatever of your going troking across
a continent on a wild-goose chase. In this situation, which I
am fortunately able to place at your disposal, and which many a
well-conducted young man would be glad to jump at, you will
receive, to begin with, eighteen shillings a week."
"Eighteen shillings a week!" I cried. "Why, my poor friend
gave me more than that for nothing!"
"And I think it is this very friend you are now trying to repay?"
observed my uncle, with an air of one advancing a strong
argument.
"Aadam!" said my grandfather.
"I'm vexed you should be present at this business," quoth Uncle
Adam, swinging rather obsequiously towards the stonemason;
"but I must remind you it is of your own seeking."
"Aadam!" repeated the old man.
"Well, sir, I am listening," says my uncle.
My grandfather took a puff or two in silence; and then, "Ye're
makin' an awfu' poor appearance, Aadam," said he.
My uncle visibly reared at the affront. "I'm sorry you should
think so," said he, "and still more sorry you should say so
before present company."
"A believe that; A ken that, Aadam," returned old Loudon,
dryly; "and the curiis thing is, I'm no very carin'. See here, ma
man," he continued, addressing himself to me. "A'm your
grandfaither, amn't I not? Never you mind what Aadam says.
A'll see justice din ye. A'm rich."
"Father," said Uncle Adam, "I would like one word with you in
private."
I rose to go.
"Set down upon your hinderlands," cried my grandfather,
almost savagely. "If Aadam has anything to say, let him say it.
It's me that has the money here; and by Gravy! I'm goin' to be
obeyed."
Upon this scurvy encouragement, it appeared that my uncle had
no remark to offer: twice challenged to "speak out and be done
with it," he twice sullenly declined; and I may mention that
about this period of the engagement, I began to be sorry for
him.
"See here, then, Jeannie's yin!" resumed my grandfather. "A'm
goin' to give ye a set-off. Your mither was always my fav'rite,
for A never could agree with Aadam. A like ye fine yoursel';
there's nae noansense aboot ye; ye've a fine nayteral idee of
builder's work; ye've been to France, where they tell me they're
grand at the stuccy. A splendid thing for ceilin's, the stuccy!
and it's a vailyable disguise, too; A don't believe there's a
builder in Scotland has used more stuccy than me. But as A
was sayin', if ye'll follie that trade, with the capital that A'm
goin' to give ye, ye may live yet to be as rich as mysel'. Ye see,
ye would have always had a share of it when A was gone; it
appears ye're needin' it now; well, ye'll get the less, as is only
just and proper."
Uncle Adam cleared his throat. "This is very handsome,
father," said he; "and I am sure Loudon feels it so. Very
handsome, and as you say, very just; but will you allow me to
say that it had better, perhaps, be put in black and white?"
The enmity always smouldering between the two men at this
ill-judged interruption almost burst in flame. The stonemason
turned upon his offspring, his long upper lip pulled down, for
all the world, like a monkey's. He stared a while in virulent
silence; and then "Get Gregg!" said he.
The effect of these words was very visible. "He will be gone to
his office," stammered my uncle.
"Get Gregg!" repeated my grandfather.
"I tell you, he will be gone to his office," reiterated Adam.
"And I tell ye, he's takin' his smoke," retorted the old man.
"Very well, then," cried my uncle, getting to his feet with some
alacrity, as upon a sudden change of thought, "I will get him
myself."
"Ye will not!" cried my grandfather. "Ye will sit there upon
your hinderland."
"Then how the devil am I to get him?" my uncle broke forth,
with not unnatural petulance.
My grandfather (having no possible answer) grinned at his son
with the malice of a schoolboy; then he rang the bell.
"Take the garden key," said Uncle Adam to the servant; "go
over to the garden, and if Mr. Gregg the lawyer is there (he
generally sits under the red hawthorn), give him old Mr.
Loudon's compliments, and will he step in here for a moment?"
"Mr. Gregg the lawyer!" At once I understood (what had been
puzzling me) the significance of my grandfather and the alarm
of my poor uncle: the stonemason's will, it was supposed, hung
trembling in the balance.
"Look here, grandfather," I said, "I didn't want any of this. All
I wanted was a loan of (say) two hundred pounds. I can take
care of myself; I have prospects and opportunities, good friends
in the States----"
The old man waved me down. "It's me that speaks here," he
said curtly; and we waited the coming of the lawyer in a triple
silence. He appeared at last, the maid ushering him in--a
spectacled, dry, but not ungenial looking man.
"Here, Gregg," cried my grandfather. "Just a question: What
has Aadam got to do with my will?"
"I'm afraid I don't quite understand," said the lawyer, staring.
"What has he got to do with it?" repeated the old man, smiting
with his fist upon the arm of his chair. "Is my money mine's, or
is it Aadam's? Can Aadam interfere?"
"O, I see," said Mr. Gregg. "Certainly not. On the marriage of
both of your children a certain sum was paid down and
accepted in full of legitim. You have surely not forgotten the
circumstance, Mr. Loudon?"
"So that, if I like," concluded my grandfather, hammering out
his words, "I can leave every doit I die possessed of to the Great
Magunn?"--meaning probably the Great Mogul.
"No doubt of it," replied Gregg, with a shadow of a smile.
"Ye hear that, Aadam?" asked my grandfather.
"I may be allowed to say I had no need to hear it," said my
uncle.
"Very well," says my grandfather. "You and Jeannie's yin can
go for a bit walk. Me and Gregg has business."
When once I was in the hall alone with Uncle Adam, I turned
to him, sick at heart. "Uncle Adam," I said, "you can
understand, better than I can say, how very painful all this is to
me."
"Yes, I am sorry you have seen your grandfather in so
unamiable a light," replied this extraordinary man. "You
shouldn't allow it to affect your mind though. He has sterling
qualities, quite an extraordinary character; and I have no fear
but he means to behave handsomely to you."
His composure was beyond my imitation: the house could not
contain me, nor could I even promise to return to it: in
concession to which weakness, it was agreed that I should call
in about an hour at the office of the lawyer, whom (as he left
the library) Uncle Adam should waylay and inform of the
arrangement. I suppose there was never a more topsy-turvy
situation: you would have thought it was I who had suffered
some rebuff, and that iron-sided Adam was a generous
conqueror who scorned to take advantage.
It was plain enough that I was to be endowed: to what extent
and upon what conditions I was now left for an hour to
meditate in the wide and solitary thoroughfares of the new
town, taking counsel with street-corner statues of George IV.
and William Pitt, improving my mind with the pictures in the
window of a music-shop, and renewing my acquaintance with
Edinburgh east wind. By the end of the hour I made my way to
Mr. Gregg's office, where I was placed, with a few appropriate
words, in possession of a cheque for two thousand pounds and
a small parcel of architectural works.
"Mr. Loudon bids me add," continued the lawyer, consulting a
little sheet of notes, "that although these volumes are very
valuable to the practical builder, you must be careful not to lose
originality. He tells you also not to be 'hadden doun'--his own
expression--by the theory of strains, and that Portland cement,
properly sanded, will go a long way."
I smiled, and remarked that I supposed it would.
"I once lived in one of my excellent client's houses," observed
the lawyer; "and I was tempted, in that case, to think it had
gone far enough."
"Under these circumstances, sir," said I, "you will be rather
relieved to hear that I have no intention of becoming a builder."
At this, he fairly laughed; and, the ice being broken, I was able
to consult him as to my conduct. He insisted I must return to
the house, at least, for luncheon, and one of my walks with Mr.
Loudon. "For the evening, I will furnish you with an excuse, if
you please," said he, "by asking you to a bachelor dinner with
myself. But the luncheon and the walk are unavoidable. He is
an old man, and, I believe, really fond of you; he would
naturally feel aggrieved if there were any appearance of
avoiding him; and as for Mr. Adam, do you know, I think your
delicacy out of place.... And now, Mr. Dodd, what are you to
do with this money?"
Ay, there was the question. With two thousand pounds--fifty
thousand francs--I might return to Paris and the arts, and be a
prince and millionaire in that thrifty Latin Quarter. I think I
had the grace, with one corner of my mind, to be glad that I had
sent the London letter: I know very well that with the rest and
worst of me, I repented bitterly of that precipitate act. On one
point, however, my whole multiplex estate of man was
unanimous: the letter being gone, there was no help but I must
follow. The money was accordingly divided in two unequal
shares: for the first, Mr. Gregg got me a bill in the name of
Dijon to meet my liabilities in Paris; for the second, as I had
already cash in hand for the expenses of my journey, he
supplied me with drafts on San Francisco.
The rest of my business in Edinburgh, not to dwell on a very
agreeable dinner with the lawyer or the horrors of the family
luncheon, took the form of an excursion with the stonemason,
who led me this time to no suburb or work of his old hands, but
with an impulse both natural and pretty, to that more enduring
home which he had chosen for his clay. It was in a cemetery,
by some strange chance, immured within the bulwarks of a
prison; standing, besides, on the margin of a cliff, crowded
with elderly stone memorials, and green with turf and ivy. The
east wind (which I thought too harsh for the old man)
continually shook the boughs, and the thin sun of a Scottish
summer drew their dancing shadows.
"I wanted ye to see the place," said he. "Yon's the stane.
Euphemia Ross: that was my goodwife, your grandmither
--hoots! I'm wrong; that was my first yin; I had no bairns by
her;--yours is the second, Mary Murray, Born 1819, Died 1850:
that's her--a fine, plain, decent sort of a creature, tak' her
athegether. Alexander Loudon, Born Seventeen Ninety-Twa,
Died--and then a hole in the ballant: that's me. Alexander's
my name. They ca'd me Ecky when I was a boy. Eh, Ecky!
ye're an awfu' auld man!"
I had a second and sadder experience of graveyards at my next
alighting-place, the city of Muskegon, now rendered
conspicuous by the dome of the new capitol encaged in
scaffolding. It was late in the afternoon when I arrived, and
raining; and as I walked in great streets, of the very name of
which I was quite ignorant--double, treble, and quadruple lines
of horse-cars jingling by--hundred-fold wires of telegraph and
telephone matting heaven above my head--huge, staring
houses, garish and gloomy, flanking me from either hand--the
thought of the Rue Racine, ay, and of the cabman's eating
-house, brought tears to my eyes. The whole monotonous
Babel had grown, or I should rather say swelled, with such a
leap since my departure, that I must continually inquire my
way; and the very cemetery was brand new. Death, however,
had been active; the graves were already numerous, and I must
pick my way in the rain, among the tawdry sepulchres of
millionnaires, and past the plain black crosses of Hungarian
labourers, till chance or instinct led me to the place that was my
father's. The stone had been erected (I knew already) "by
admiring friends"; I could now judge their taste in monuments;
their taste in literature, methought, I could imagine, and I
refrained from drawing near enough to read the terms of the
inscription. But the name was in larger letters and stared at
me--JAMES K. DODD. What a singular thing is a name, I
thought; how it clings to a man, and continually misrepresents,
and then survives him; and it flashed across my mind, with a
mixture of regret and bitter mirth, that I had never known, and
now probably never should know, what the K had represented.
King, Kilter, Kay, Kaiser, I went, running over names at
random, and then stumbled with ludicrous misspelling on
Kornelius, and had nearly laughed aloud. I have never been
more childish; I suppose (although the deeper voices of my
nature seemed all dumb) because I have never been more
moved. And at this last incongruous antic of my nerves, I was
seized with a panic of remorse and fled the cemetery.
Scarce less funereal was the rest of my experience in
Muskegon, where, nevertheless, I lingered, visiting my father's
circle, for some days. It was in piety to him I lingered; and I
might have spared myself the pain. His memory was already
quite gone out. For his sake, indeed, I was made welcome; and
for mine the conversation rolled awhile with laborious effort on
the virtues of the deceased. His former comrades dwelt, in my
company, upon his business talents or his generosity for public
purposes; when my back was turned, they remembered him no
more. My father had loved me; I had left him alone to live and
die among the indifferent; now I returned to find him dead and
buried and forgotten. Unavailing penitence translated itself in
my thoughts to fresh resolve. There was another poor soul who
loved me: Pinkerton. I must not be guilty twice of the same
error.
A week perhaps had been thus wasted, nor had I prepared my
friend for the delay. Accordingly, when I had changed trains at
Council Bluffs, I was aware of a man appearing at the end of
the car with a telegram in his hand and inquiring whether there
were any one aboard "of the name of LONDON Dodd?" I
thought the name near enough, claimed the despatch, and
found it was from Pinkerton: "What day do you arrive?
Awfully important." I sent him an answer giving day and hour,
and at Ogden found a fresh despatch awaiting me: "That will
do. Unspeakable relief. Meet you at Sacramento." In Paris
days I had a private name for Pinkerton: "The Irrepressible"
was what I had called him in hours of bitterness, and the name
rose once more on my lips. What mischief was he up to now?
What new bowl was my benignant monster brewing for his
Frankenstein? In what new imbroglio should I alight on the
Pacific coast? My trust in the man was entire, and my distrust
perfect. I knew he would never mean amiss; but I was
convinced he would almost never (in my sense) do aright.
I suppose these vague anticipations added a shade of gloom to
that already gloomy place of travel: Nebraska, Wyoming,
Utah, Nevada, scowled in my face at least, and seemed to point
me back again to that other native land of mine, the Latin
Quarter. But when the Sierras had been climbed, and the train,
after so long beating and panting, stretched itself upon the
downward track--when I beheld that vast extent of prosperous
country rolling seaward from the woods and the blue
mountains, that illimitable spread of rippling corn, the trees
growing and blowing in the merry weather, the country boys
thronging aboard the train with figs and peaches, and the
conductors, and the very darky stewards, visibly exulting in the
change--up went my soul like a balloon; Care fell from his
perch upon my shoulders; and when I spied my Pinkerton
among the crowd at Sacramento, I thought of nothing but to
shout and wave for him, and grasp him by the hand, like what
he was--my dearest friend.
"O Loudon!" he cried. "Man, how I've pined for you! And you
haven't come an hour too soon. You're known here and waited
for; I've been booming you already; you're billed for a lecture
to-morrow night: _Student Life in Paris, Grave and Gay_:
twelve hundred places booked at the last stock! Tut, man,
you're looking thin! Here, try a drop of this." And he produced
a case bottle, staringly labelled PINKERTON'S THIRTEEN
STAR GOLDEN STATE BRANDY, WARRANTED
ENTIRE.
"God bless me!" said I, gasping and winking after my first
plunge into this fiery fluid. "And what does 'Warranted Entire'
mean?"
"Why, Loudon! you ought to know that!" cried Pinkerton. "It's
real, copper-bottomed English; you see it on all the old-time
wayside hostelries over there."
"But if I'm not mistaken, it means something Warranted
Entirely different," said I, "and applies to the public house, and
not the beverages sold."
"It's very possible," said Jim, quite unabashed. "It's effective,
anyway; and I can tell you, sir, it has boomed that spirit: it
goes now by the gross of cases. By the way, I hope you won't
mind; I've got your portrait all over San Francisco for the
lecture, enlarged from that carte de visite: H. Loudon Dodd,
the Americo-Parisienne Sculptor. Here's a proof of the small
handbills; the posters are the same, only in red and blue, and
the letters fourteen by one."
I looked at the handbill, and my head turned. What was the
use of words? why seek to explain to Pinkerton the knotted
horrors of "Americo-Parisienne"? He took an early occasion to
point it out as "rather a good phrase; gives the two sides at a
glance: I wanted the lecture written up to that." Even after we
had reached San Francisco, and at the actual physical shock of
my own effigy placarded on the streets I had broken forth in
petulant words, he never comprehended in the least the ground
of my aversion.
"If I had only known you disliked red lettering!" was as high as
he could rise. "You are perfectly right: a clear-cut black is
preferable, and shows a great deal further. The only thing that
pains me is the portrait: I own I thought that a success. I'm
dreadfully and truly sorry, my dear fellow: I see now it's not
what you had a right to expect; but I did it, Loudon, for the
best; and the press is all delighted."
At the moment, sweeping through green tule swamps, I fell
direct on the essential. "But, Pinkerton," I cried, "this lecture is
the maddest of your madnesses. How can I prepare a lecture in
thirty hours?"
"All done, Loudon!" he exclaimed in triumph. "All ready.
Trust me to pull a piece of business through. You'll find it all
type-written in my desk at home. I put the best talent of San
Francisco on the job: Harry Miller, the brightest pressman in
the city."
And so he rattled on, beyond reach of my modest protestations,
blurting out his complicated interests, crying up his new
acquaintances, and ever and again hungering to introduce me
to some "whole-souled, grand fellow, as sharp as a needle,"
from whom, and the very thought of whom, my spirit shrank
instinctively.
Well, I was in for it: in for Pinkerton, in for the portrait, in for
the type-written lecture. One promise I extorted--that I was
never again to be committed in ignorance; even for that, when I
saw how its extortion puzzled and depressed the Irrepressible,
my soul repented me; and in all else I suffered myself to be led
uncomplaining at his chariot wheels. The Irrepressible, did I
say? The Irresistible were nigher truth.
But the time to have seen me was when I sat down to Harry
Miller's lecture. He was a facetious dog, this Harry Miller; he
had a gallant way of skirting the indecent which (in my case)
produced physical nausea; and he could be sentimental and
even melodramatic about grisettes and starving genius. I found
he had enjoyed the benefit of my correspondence with
Pinkerton: adventures of my own were here and there horridly
misrepresented, sentiments of my own echoed and exaggerated
till I blushed to recognise them. I will do Harry Miller justice:
he must have had a kind of talent, almost of genius; all
attempts to lower his tone proving fruitless, and the Harry-
Millerism ineradicable. Nay, the monster had a certain key of
style, or want of style, so that certain milder passages, which I
sought to introduce, discorded horribly, and impoverished (if
that were possible) the general effect.
By an early hour of the numbered evening I might have been
observed at the sign of the Poodle Dog, dining with my agent:
so Pinkerton delighted to describe himself. Thence, like an ox
to the slaughter, he led me to the hall, where I stood presently
alone, confronting assembled San Francisco, with no better
allies than a table, a glass of water, and a mass of manuscript
and typework, representing Harry Miller and myself. I read
the lecture; for I had lacked both time and will to get the trash
by heart--read it hurriedly, humbly, and with visible shame.
Now and then I would catch in the auditorium an eye of some
intelligence, now and then, in the manuscript, would stumble
on a richer vein of Harry Miller, and my heart would fail me,
and I gabbled. The audience yawned, it stirred uneasily, it
muttered, grumbled, and broke forth at last in articulate cries of
"Speak up!" and "Nobody can hear!" I took to skipping, and
being extremely ill-acquainted with the country, almost
invariably cut in again in the unintelligible midst of some new
topic. What struck me as extremely ominous, these
misfortunes were allowed to pass without a laugh. Indeed, I
was beginning to fear the worst, and even personal indignity,
when all at once the humour of the thing broke upon me
strongly. I could have laughed aloud; and being again
summoned to speak up, I faced my patrons for the first time
with a smile. "Very well," I said, "I will try, though I don't
suppose anybody wants to hear, and I can't see why anybody
should." Audience and lecturer laughed together till the tears
ran down; vociferous and repeated applause hailed my
impromptu sally. Another hit which I made but a little after, as
I turned three pages of the copy: "You see, I am leaving out as
much as I possibly can," increased the esteem with which my
patrons had begun to regard me; and when I left the stage at
last, my departing form was cheered with laughter, stamping,
shouting, and the waving of hats.
Pinkerton was in the waiting-room, feverishly jotting in his
pocket-book. As he saw me enter, he sprang up, and I declare
the tears were trickling on his cheeks.
"My dear boy," he cried, "I can never forgive myself, and you
can never forgive me. Never mind: I did it for the best. And
how nobly you clung on! I dreaded we should have had to
return the money at the doors."
"It would have been more honest if we had," said I.
The pressmen followed me, Harry Miller in the front ranks; and
I was amazed to find them, on the whole, a pleasant set of lads,
probably more sinned against than sinning, and even Harry
Miller apparently a gentleman. I had in oysters and
champagne--for the receipts were excellent--and being in a
high state of nervous tension, kept the table in a roar. Indeed, I
was never in my life so well inspired as when I described my
vigil over Harry Miller's literature or the series of my emotions
as I faced the audience. The lads vowed I was the soul of good
company and the prince of lecturers; and--so wonderful an
institution is the popular press--if you had seen the notices next
day in all the papers, you must have supposed my evening's
entertainment an unqualified success.
I was in excellent spirits when I returned home that night, but
the miserable Pinkerton sorrowed for us both.
"O, Loudon," he said, "I shall never forgive myself. When I
saw you didn't catch on to the idea of the lecture, I should have
given it myself!"
Content of CHAPTER VI - IN WHICH I GO WEST [Robert Louis Stevenson's novel: The Wrecker]
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