JIM was very busy about the book-shelves that evening, taking out and putting back various books, until, at last, his movements called forth the observations of his anxious family. The Rector, who had come home moody and troubled, and who had made no inquiry into Sophocles, neither had shown the interest that was expected in Jim’s expedition to Winwick with the curate, looked up fretfully and begged his son to have a little respect for other people’s occupations if he had none of his own. Mr. Plowden was doing nothing more serious than reading the evening paper, so that the gravity of this address was a little uncalled-for; but he was put out about something, as all the family was aware.
‘What are you looking for?’ said his mother, who had boundless patience with Jim.
‘I want to take two or three things over to Osborne,’ said Jim, ‘to let him choose. I’m to read something for him at his entertainment.’
‘What?’ said the Rector, looking over the top of his paper with angry eyes.
Upon which Jim repeated his announcement a little louder and with a slight air of defiance; or, at least, the air of a man ready to be defiant, as—when there is nothing but virtue in his mind, a man feels that he has a right to be.
‘His entertainment! His teetotal entertainment! Stuff and nonsense—cramming the fellows’ heads with pride and folly, as if they were better than their neighbours.’
‘Oh, James!’ said his wife, ‘let them be as silly as they like. What does that matter in comparison with ruining their families by drink?’
‘They’ll ruin their families by something else,’ said the Rector; ‘if not in one way they’ll get it out in another—politics, most likely, and socialism, and that sort of thing. What Osborne will do is to make them all a set of insufferable, narrow-minded prigs.’
‘Even that, James——’ began Mrs. Plowden.
‘Don’t tell me,’ said the Rector, ‘that you’ll make men Christians by teaching them that there’s a curse on one of the gifts of God. You may abuse any and all of the gifts of God; but to make a young ass think he is superior to his honest father, because he abstains, forsooth, and the old man likes his honest glass of beer!’
‘Mr. Osborne doesn’t teach them that, papa,’ said Florry from the further corner of the room, in which, her eyes, she said, being a little weak, she had established herself. Mr. Plowden turned upon her like a tempest.
‘Who are you?’ he said; ‘a little chit of a girl, to tell me what Osborne teaches them or doesn’t teach them! I should hope I am still able to judge for myself—at least, in such a question as this.’
‘Hush, Florry!’ said her mother, with a little nod at Florence. They were all aware that in certain conjunctures it was inexpedient to contradict the Rector. As for Jim, he held up two books to his mother behind backs over Mr. Plowden’s head and disappeared with them, shutting the door softly behind him. He was too much in the habit of closing doors softly and stealing out; but Mrs. Plowden’s mind being otherwise occupied, she did not think of this to-night.
If there had been anything wanted to throw Jim into the arms of the curate, that tirade did it. Had his father sent him forth to Mr. Osborne’s company with a blessing, it would have spoiled all; but to escape for all the world as if he were going to spend the evening with Mrs. Brown, put things at once on a right footing. Jim walked through the village, not in his usual lounging way, but with a long stride and head high. He glanced at the ‘Blue Boar,’ with the cheerful light shining through its red curtains, and thought with a little contempt of the fellows who were seated, he knew, in a cloud of smoke within, and with talk as smoky as the air, he thought to himself lightly. It was a place where a man might go to pass the time when he had nothing else to do; but he had never entertained any illusion on the subject of its dulness, Jim said to himself.
It is doubtful whether Mr. Osborne heard Jim’s step coming through the little garden of the cottage in which he lodged with the same exhilaration. The curate, indeed, had been of opinion that Jim was not at all likely to come, and had settled himself to his evening’s occupation with that view. He had not found much pleasure in the young man’s companionship during their long walk. He had caught the look of surprise, the lifting of the eyebrows, with which the people of Winwick testified their amazement to see such a superior person as Mr. Osborne accompanied by that unlucky Jim—and Mr. Osborne had not liked it. The fact that he did not like it, however, was the one good thing in the matter, for it gave him the conviction that since he did not like it, it must be the right thing. He had liked that little glorification of taking the pledge to induce old Mrs. Lloyd to do it; and this sensation had made him much less strong than he might have been as to the absolute virtue of the act. Mr. Osborne, as will be perceived, was really a very superior young man. When Mr. Ormerod had taken him aside, with again a lifting of the eyebrows, and asked him whether that young cub of Plowden’s had turned over a new leaf as he (Osborne) had taken him in tow, the curate of Watcham had been angry. ‘Don’t you think it might be perhaps my duty to help him to turn over a new leaf?’ he had said, with some asperity, at which the Winwick curate had lifted his eyebrows more and more. They had all thought that to consort with Jim was rather a token that Mr. Osborne himself was acquiring a relish for indifferent society, than that it was his duty to endeavour to reclaim that species of lost sheep. This naturally and beneficially excited the temper of Edward Osborne, which was a fine, animated, vigorous sort of temper, capable of doing a great deal to encourage him in an unpopular way. If it had been a young boatman on Riverside there would have been no lifting of eyebrows. So much the more was it evident that this particular thing was his duty, and that he was bound to pursue what these asses took upon them to disapprove of. A man may be a very good man, and yet feel his virtuous determination strengthened by the consciousness that those who are against him are asses. And just as Jim was encouraged by his father’s angry opposition, so was Mr. Osborne by the surprise, whether put in words or not, of his Winwick friends. They had all been greatly complimentary and touched to the heart by the episode of old Mrs. Lloyd.
But he had thought that his reformatory effort was over for the day. The invitation he had given Jim for the evening had been a sudden and passing impulse, and he had never suspected that it would be accepted. Even when it was accepted in word, he still thought nothing more would come of it. The young fellow would not be able to pass the ‘Blue Boar,’ or he would be caught at the schoolhouse by Mrs. Brown. Having done his duty amply, as he felt he had done, it was almost with relief that the curate concluded that Jim would never manage to pass the ‘Blue Boar.’ When he heard, on the contrary, a footstep ring upon the little line of pavement which divided in two the cottage garden where his lodgings were, Mr. Osborne was much startled, and it cannot be said that his start was one of pleasure. ‘Oh! here’s this confounded fellow again.’ I am afraid that was the thought that passed through his mind: and he pushed away his work with impatience, clearing away several books which he had been consulting. He wanted to make a conquest, a convert of Jim. He had a hundred reasons for wishing it. First, the conviction that on the whole it was a far more difficult task than administering the pledge to Mrs. Lloyd: second, that Jim Plowden, after all, would be a more considerable prize than the old woman, that lie was at least worth as much trouble as a young waterman on Riverside; third, that perhaps it might be allowed that an Oxford man and a gentleman has a peculiar duty towards another Oxford man and gentleman who is going astray, even though that duty is very little acknowledged. Fourthly—— No! there was nothing at all about Florence Plowden in the matter, nothing but an undying resentment against the girl who had presumed to teach him his duty! She might be right. I presume he felt in his heart that she was right, or he would not have taken the measures he had done. But he also felt in his heart that he could never forgive her for her temerity, for departing from the woman’s part so much as to venture to suggest to one of the priests of her parish what he should do. No, Florence Plowden told for nothing in the effort he was making. When her name floated up it awakened nothing but feelings of anger in his breast.
Poor Florry! She sat half in the dark with her knitting, pretending she felt her eyes weak, in order that she might not betray the melting mist of happiness that was in her face, the soft dew that kept coming into her eyes. If anybody had seen how near she was to crying, they would have thought her unhappy: whereas she was almost too happy to think, certainly too glad—except in a momentary impulse like that which had called upon her the reproof of both parents—to speak.
Jim put his books before Osborne, who grinned at the sight. It was intended for a smile, but it was a poor version of a smile. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said, ‘Browning, the “Ride to Aix.” Isn’t it just a little hackneyed? Oh, no, not the poem itself. I don’t mean that: but everybody does it. What’s the other? Ingoldsby. O—oh. I don’t know, if you ask me my opinion, that I care so very much for Ingoldsby, myself.’
‘Perhaps not,’ said Jim, who for this once was wiser than his leader, ‘but they do, you know. He’s always the most popular of all.’
‘Eh—oh—ah,’ said Mr. Osborne, putting his head on one side as though to see in that way the virtues which were visible to the people in general. ‘Now, I should have thought,’ he said, ‘that this sort of stuff was too—too conventional, too fictitious, in the wrong sense of the word, to please these sort of rough intelligences; that they would like something more—more straightforward, don’t you know.’
‘Like the “Ride to Aix”? But then they’re awfully anxious to know,’ said Jim, ‘what it was for, what the news was, and when it was, and all that; and I’ve never found yet any one that knew.’
Mr. Osborne discreetly turned that question aside, for on this point he had no more information than other people. ‘Suppose you read it and let me hear,’ he said. It was very good-humoured and kind of him. He expected nothing, if truth must be told, and he was really very full of occupation and had a great many things to do. But Jim, as it turned out, did not read badly at all. And there came a note of emotion in his voice as the gallop rang on; that sort of sympathy with the excitement of the strain, and climbing passion in the throat, which only a few readers are moved by. The curate listened in amaze while this high note of poetic sympathy thrilled through the lines, which Jim read with a pause or two and strain of breath to overcome himself. He could not understand what it meant to feel thus, and yet to drift into the parlour of the ‘Blue Boar’; to tremble and flush with the poetry, and then listen to Slaughter and White maundering about politics, or sit with the schoolmistress. There came over the curate for the first time in a great many years a sense of humility, a sudden conviction that there were more things in heaven and earth than were dreamt of in his philosophy.
‘By Jove,’ said Jim, ‘I got through it pretty well this time. The worst is my voice always breaks at that line: “And into the square Roland staggered and stood.” One gets wound up so, don’t you know. After that I can always manage the rest.’
‘Give me the book,’ said Osborne; and he, too, read the last verses, but his voice did not break at all, the water did not come into his eyes. He read it all as if it were one of his own sermons. Decidedly there were things in heaven and earth—perhaps he acknowledged it a little grudgingly: ‘Evidently, Plowden, you have the knack of it much better than I.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Jim, with a good-humoured laugh. ‘You read so well. I’ve got no knack. It is only that a few of these things get over me somehow. Because—because they are mere stories and of no consequence.’
‘Plowden,’ said the curate.
‘Yes?’
‘I wonder if you’d be dreadfully offended if I asked you one thing?’
‘I am not very peppery,’ said Jim; ‘fire away?’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I will, but you will be angry, I fear. It is just this. When you feel these things so, more than most people—more,’ he added, with a naïve surprise, ‘than I do myself; how is it, you know—that—I don’t want to offend you—how is it that——’
Jim’s countenance grew deeply red, a cloud came over it for a moment; then he shook his head as if to shake off any consideration of such questions. ‘I say, don’t ask me that kind of conundrum. I’m not good at guessing things,’ he said. ‘Will the “Ride” do?’
‘The “Ride” will do capitally,’ said the curate. He too shook off with a flush the questions which had risen involuntarily to his lips. He was grateful to Jim for passing it over, for neither taking offence in words nor jumping up and breaking off the conference. ‘What sort of people do you think will come,’ he said, ‘since you seem to have experience of these things?’
‘Oh!’ said Jim, ‘a number of the village people will come—the daughters of the tradespeople, and those shifting folks that live in Pleasant Place, and a number of the “gentry”—the General——’
Mr. Osborne made a sign of impatience and dissatisfaction.
‘Don’t you want the gentry to come? But the others like it. I assure you they do. Mrs. White and Mrs. Slaughter will not come, they are too grand. They’re able to pay for their pleasure when they make up their minds to go out.’
Jim said this with a gleam of Florry’s mimicry, which discomposed the curate more than he could say. ‘You seem to know all about it,’ he cried, a little sharply. ‘But I want the men from Riverside, the fellows from the boats. I don’t want ladies and gentlemen. What I want is to keep the men from the public-house. Do you mean to say the same sort of thing has been done here before?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Jim, ‘we have done it before; but I don’t think we got any of the Riverside men. The people who come generally are—well, just the village people, Osborne, the people you know, particularly the women and the Sunday School lads, those that my sisters teach carving to, and so forth; and the ones that come to the night-school.’
‘Ah!’ said the curate, ‘that is always something,’ with a sigh of relief.
‘And all that my mother calls the nice, respectable people,’ said Jim, with a laugh, destroying the momentary good effect he had produced.
The curate put his face in his hands, and was silent for a minute. ‘So that I have been taking all this trouble,’ he said, ‘and getting people to come over from Winwick, and laying myself under obligations—to amuse the old women—and the gentry, as you call them.’
‘Well, yes; there will be old Mrs. Lloyd, and some more of her kind,’ Jim said.
Mr. Osborne looked at his visitor for a moment, with as deep a colour as that which Jim had shown when he was being questioned—as much heat of embarrassment, and an air of offence much more marked. Mrs. Lloyd! The curate felt that the name of this old woman was a missile that any one was now at liberty to fling at him, to turn him into ridicule. Strange! when a very short time ago it appeared to him the finest feather in his cap.
‘We must do something about this, Plowden,’ he said. ‘We must lay hold on some of these fellows, and get them to come. I’ve pledged myself it’s for them. I’ve meant it all along for them. What can we do to get hold of them? You’ve been here all your life; you must have known half of them as boys. Can’t we do something? can’t we find some way of attracting them? Think for yourself. Do you want to read that “Ride,” which, you do so well, to—— Mrs. Lloyd?’ It would be impossible to express the tone of disgust with which Mr. Osborne said this name.
‘I don’t suppose she would understand much of it, poor old body. But she will like to hear the girls sing,’ said Jim, more charitable, after all, to the old lady than was the instrument of her conversion from beer. ‘About the men, I don’t know; they’re very hard to fetch. Yes, I used to know a lot of the young ones as boys; but I haven’t seen anything of them for a long time.’
‘I tell you what, Plowden,’ said the curate, ‘we’ll go down there some evening when the fellows are about. You can talk to them, for old acquaintance’ sake, while I—— Put your shoulder to the wheel! Of course, you could do a great deal if you chose. Don’t, for the credit of the parish, let those fellows say we bring them over here to play to the old women. I can’t stand it. I may have been a fool,’ Mr. Osborne said. He said it with a force and bitterness which Jim could not understand—not to Jim, that was clear, but to some unknown adversary. ‘But stand by me,’ he said, putting his hand on Jim’s shoulder, ‘and we’ll tell another tale.’
‘Stand by me!’ Was it the curate that spoke, and was this Jim to whom he appealed?