A Passionate Pilgrim

oduced. I had formed in Italy and France a resolute preference for old inns, considering that what they sometimes cost the ungratified body they repay the delighted mind. On

sed the threshold of this retreat than I felt I had cut a golden-ripe crop of English “impressions.” The coffee-room of the Red Lion, like so many other places and things I was destined t

nt Britain a seat. In each of these rigid receptacles was a narrow table — a table expected under stress to accommodate no less than four pairs of active British elbows. High pressure indeed had passed away from the Red Lion for ever. It now knew only that of memories and ghosts and atmosphere. Round the room there marched, breast-high, a magnificent panelling of mahogany, so dark with time and so polished with unremitted friction that by gazing a while into its lucid blackness I made out the dim reflexion of a party of wigged gentlemen in knee-breeches just arrived from York by the coach. On the dark yellow walls, coated by the fumes of English coal, of English mutton, of Scotch whiskey, were a dozen melancholy prints, sallow-toned with age — the Derby favourite of the year 1807, the Bank of England, her Majesty the

r and well-drawn brows, but not altogether out of harmony with his colourless bilious complexion. His nose was aquiline and delicate; beneath it his moustache languished much rather than bristled. His mouth and chin were negative, or at the most provisional; not vulgar, doubtless, but ineffectually refined. A cold fatal gentlemanly weakness was expressed indeed in his attenuated person. His eye was restless and deprecating; his whole physiognomy, his manner of shifting his weight from foot to foot, the spiritless droop of his head, told of exhausted intentions, of a will relaxed. His dress was neat and “toned down”— he might have been in mourning. I made up my mind on three points: he was a bachelor, he was out of health, he was not indigenous to the soil. The waiter approached him,

n, take from his overcoat-pocket three New York newspapers and lay them beside his plate. As my neighbours proceeded to dine I felt the crumbs of their conversation scattered pretty freely abroad. I could hear almost all they said, without straining to catch it, over the top of the partition that divided us. Occasionally their voices dropped to recovery of discretion, but the mystery pieced it

was deadly sick from th

nsiderably reduced,”

rave. I haven’t slept six hours for three

e the voyage fo

e! You mean to loca

t be so ver

re the same merry old boy, Searle. Go

st wish

ct like an Englishman. But I know these people here and I know you. You’re not one of this crowd,

y in this accursed city, ready to cry with homesickness and heartsickness and every possible sort of sickness, and thinking, in the absence of anything better, of meeting you h

DON’T ‘cry,’ Searle,” I heard him say. “Remember the waiter. I’ve grown Englishman enough for that. For heaven’s sake don’t let’s h

collapsed in his chair. “Upon my word, sir, you’

I was never sorrier to

tially heard. “Abijah Simmons,” he then cried, “what demon of perversity possesses you? Are

ll wait till you’ve done. Your beer’s lovely,” he obser

lain yourself!” his

mooning man,” he resumed, “I don’t want to say anything to make you feel sore. I regularly pity you. But you must allo

compose himself. “Be so good as to tell me

ease folks. I had much better have let you alone. To tell you the plain truth I never was so horrified in my

id you expec

ly till I had made further enqu

ade further e

I’ve committ

find I’ve

t struck me at first that you had rather a neat litt

me. My native sweetness, as I say, was part of it. The idea that if I put the thing through it would be a very pretty feather in my cap and a very pretty penny in my purse was part of it. And the satisfaction of seeing a horrid low American walk right into an old English estate was a good deal of it. Upon my word, Searle, when I think of it I wish with all my h

ather shirking, I thought, the burden of this tribute

e best opinion that’s to be had just gives you one leer over its spectacles. I guess that look will fix you if you ever get it straight. I’ve been able to tap, indirectly,” Mr. Simmons went on, “the solic

e plead. “I shouldn’t begin at this time of day.

like a gentleman you’ve got a capital chanc

erested that I at last hated to hear his trouble reflected in his voice without being able — all respectfully! — to follow it

ble, gloomily nursing his head with his hands. His companion watched him and then seemed to wonder — to do Mr. Simmons justice — how he could least ungracefully give him up. “I say, Searle,”— and for my benefit, I think, taking me for a native ingenu

ther push. “Anything may happ

nd you WILL care. Have some better tipp

azed from between his two hands coldly be

mildly; “I shan’t trouble you

thi

co

nothing,

rve. How about m

said my friend.

ly about it. You said just now I don’t know you,” Mr. Simmons went on. “Possibly. C

ack. I shall

ev

ev

desperation, you had better give it right up. You can’t get a dose of the commonest kind of cold poison for nothing, you know. Look here, Searle”— and the worthy man made what s

k it’s made up now. I shall stay here till I take my departure for a newer world than any p

st now you w

that I’ve come, must I just back out? No, no, I’ll move on. I’m much obliged to you for your offer. I’ve enough money for the present. I’ve about my person some forty pounds’ worth of British gold, and the same am

ing now been vacated, it would give him pleasure if I would look in. I declined to look in, but agreed for number 12 at a venture and gave myself again, with dissimulatio

of it so often that I

call on M

en fo

upper lip look more than ever denuded by the razor and jerked the ugly ornament

gentleman

of moving on. You mig

might catch there another glimpse of Mr. Searle. I was not disappointed. I found him seated before the fire with his head sunk on his breast: he slept, dreaming perhaps of Abijah Simmons. I watched him for some moments. His closed eyes, in the dim lamplight, looked even more helpless and resigned, and I seemed to see the fine grain of his nature in his unconscious mask. They say fortune comes while we sleep, and, standing there, I felt really tender enough — though otherwise most unqualified — to be poor Mr. Searle’s fortune. As I walked away I noted in one of the little prandial pews I have described the melancholy waiter,

ness, but catching all kinds of romantic impressions by the way. To the searching American eye there is no tint of association with which the great grimy face of London doesn’t flush. As the afternoon approached, however, I began to yearn for some site more gracefully clas

ustrade, and the great carved and yawning chimney-places where dukes-inwaiting may have warmed their weary heels; on the other, in deep recesses, rise the immense windows, the framed and draped embrasures where the sovereign whispered and favourites smiled, looking out on terraced gardens and misty park. The brown walls are dimly illumined by innumerable portraits of courtiers and captains, more especially with various members of the Batavian entourage of William of Orange, the restorer of the palace; with good store too of the lily-bosomed models of Lely and Kneller. The whole tone of this processional interior is singularly stale and sad. The tints of all things have both faded and da

y enough perhaps, “I confess she

ad him through the other apartments and down into the gardens. A large gravelled platform stretches itself before the basement of the palace, taking the afternoon sun. Parts of the great structure are reserved for private use and habitation, occupied by state-pensioners, reduced gentlewomen in receipt of the Queen’s bounty and other deserving persons. Many of the apartments have their dependent gardens, and here and there, between the verdure-coated walls, you catch a glimpse of these somewhat stuffy bowers. My companion and I measured more than once this long expanse, looking down on the floral figures of the rest of the affair and on the stoutly-woven tapestry of creeping plants that muffle the foundations of the huge red pile. I thought of the various images of old-world gentility which, early and late, must have strolled in front of it and felt the protection and security of the place. We peeped through an anti

e rather out of h

— I’m an i

oul to it as to the spirit of the Lord. Since my landing in England I had been waiting for it to arrive. A bottle of tolerable Burgundy, at dinner, had perhaps unlocked to it the gates of sense; it arrived now with irresistible force. Just the scene around me was the England of one’s early reveries. Over against us, amid the ripeness of its gardens, the dark red residence, with its formal facings and its vacant windows, seemed to make the past definite and massive; the little village, nestling between park and pala

should like it. In a small way at home, of course, I did try to stand by my idea of it. I must be a conservative by nature. People at home used to call me a cockney and a f

thing told me that I had gained his confidence and that, so far as attention and attitude might go, I wa

my property — the little I had. And my ambi

ic English climate will wind you up in a month. And THEN

out these vistas. I should go every morning, at the hour when it gets the sun, into that long gallery where all those pretty women of Lely’s are hung — I know you despise them! — and stroll up and down a

riend’s shoulder. “Oh

ghtly in her saddle and glanced back at him. In the movement she dropped the hunting-crop with which she was armed; whereupon she reined up and looked shyly at us and at the implement. “This is something better than a Lely,” I said. Searle hastened forward, picked up the crop and, with a particular courtesy that became him, handed i

down on it and, as the sun began to sink, watched the light mist powder itself with

train!” sighe

ace and finally halted, touching his cap. He was a man of middle age, clad in a greasy bonnet with false-looking ear-locks depending from its sides. Round his neck was a grimy red scarf, tucked into his waistcoat; his coat and trousers had a remote affinity with those of a reduced hostler. In one hand he had a stick; on his arm he bore a tattered basket, with a handful of withered ve

ector!”— turning up his stale daisies. “Food hasn’t passed my lips, gentlemen, for the last three days.” We gaped at him and at each other, and to our imagination his appeal had almost the force of a com

He reminds me of myself. What am I but a mere figure in t

?” I thereupon took occasion to a

t the sod with the point of his umbrella before answering. “Who am I?” he said at last. “My

nd!” I made b

Before heaven, sir — whoever you are — I’m in practice so absurdly tender-hearted that I can afford to say it: I entered upon life a perfect gentleman. I had the love of old forms and pleasant rites, and I found them nowhere — found a world all hard lines and harsh lights, without shade, without composition, as they say of pictures, without the lovely mystery of colour. To furnish colour I melted down the very substance of my own soul. I went about with my brush, touching up and toning down; a very pretty chiaroscuro you’ll find in my track! Sitting here in this old park, in this old country, I feel that I hover on the misty verge of what might have been! I should have been born here and not there; here my makeshift distinctions would have found things they’d have been true of. How it was I never got free is more than I can say. It might have cut the knot, but the knot was too tight. I was always out of health or in debt or somehow desperately dangling. Besides, I had a horror of the great black sickening sea. A year ago I was reminded of the existence of an old claim to an English estate, which has danced before the eyes of my family, at odd moments, any time these eighty years. I confess it’s a bit of a muddle and a tangle, and am by no means sure that to this hour I’ve got the hang of it. You look as if you had a clear head: some other time, if you consent, we’ll have a go at it, such as it is, together. Poverty was staring me in the face; I sat down and tried to commit the ‘points’ of our case to memory, as I used to get nine-times-nine by heart as a boy. I dreamed of it for six months, half-expecting to wake up some fine morning and hear through a latticed casement the cawing of an English rookery. A couple of months ago there came out to England on business of his own a man who once got me out o

terms. “It must be on condition of your omitting from your conversation this int

aint smile: “Don’t cut down a man you find han

n your questionable claim — it’s the question that’s the charm; and pretenders, to anything big

yours added to mine. There’s no doubt, however, that we, as they say, go back. But I know nothing of business. If I were to take the matter in hand I should break in two the poor little silken thread from which everything hangs. In a better world than this

“is the estimated va

our ideas have been small. We were once advised in the sense of a hundred and thirty thous

tion,” I said. “Who’s a

ard Searle. I know

me way rela

s were half-brothers.

y. And where does your

led Lackley — i

l, suppose we look up L

ght up. “Go

nd se

, “with you I’l

the distributing heart of their traditional life. Certain characteristics of the dusky Babylon, certain aspects, phases, features, “say” more to the American spiritual ear than anything else in Europe. The influence of these things on Searle it charmed me to n