LIFE
Mount Dunstan, walking through the park next morning on his way to the vicarage, just after post time, met Mr.
Penzance himself coming to make an equally early call at the Mount.Each of them had a letter in his hand, and each met the other's glance with a smile.
"G.Selden," Mount Dunstan said."And yours?""G.Selden also," answered the vicar."Poor young fellow, what ill-luck.And yet--is it ill-luck? He says not.""He tells me it is not," said Mount Dunstan."And I agree with him."Mr.Penzance read his letter aloud.
"DEAR SIR:
"This is to notify you that owing to my bike going back on me when going down hill, I met with an accident in Stornham Park.Was cut about the head and leg broken.Little Willie being far from home and mother, you can see what sort of fix he'd been in if it hadn't been for the kindness of Reuben S.
Vanderpoel's daughters--Miss Bettina and her sister Lady Anstruthers.The way they've had me taken care of has been great.I've been under a nurse and doctor same as if I was Albert Edward with appendycytus (I apologise if that's not spelt right).Dear Sir, this is to say that I asked Miss Vanderpoel if I should be butting in too much if I dropped a line to ask if you could spare the time to call and see me.It would be considered a favour and appreciated by "G.SELDEN, "Delkoff Typewriter Co.Broadway.
"P.S.Have already sold three Delkoffs to Miss Vanderpoel.""Upon my word," Mr.Penzance commented, and his amiable fervour quite glowed, "I like that queer young fellow--I like him.He does not wish to `butt in too much.' Now, there is rudimentary delicacy in that.And what a humorous, forceful figure of speech! Some butting animal--a goat, Iseem to see, preferably--forcing its way into a group or closed circle of persons."His gleeful analysis of the phrase had such evident charm for him that Mount Dunstan broke into a shout of laughter, even as G.Selden had done at the adroit mention of Weber & Fields.
"Shall we ride over together to see him this morning? An hour with G.Selden, surrounded by the atmosphere of Reuben S.Vanderpoel, would be a cheering thing," he said.
"It would," Mr.Penzance answered."Let us go by all means.We should not, I suppose," with keen delight, "be `butting in' upon Lady Anstruthers too early?" He was quite enraptured with his own aptness."Like G.Selden, Ishould not like to `butt in,' " he added.
The scent and warmth and glow of a glorious morning filled the hour.Combining themselves with a certain normal human gaiety which surrounded the mere thought of G.Selden, they were good things for Mount Dunstan.Life was strong and young in him, and he had laughed a big young laugh, which had, perhaps tended to the waking in him of the feeling he was suddenly conscious of--that a six-mile ride over a white, tree-dappled, sunlit road would be pleasant enough, and, after all, if at the end of the gallop one came again upon that other in whom life was strong and young, and bloomed on rose-cheek and was the far fire in the blue deeps of lovely eyes, and the slim straightness of the fair body, why would it not be, in a way, all to the good? He had thought of her on more than one day, and felt that he wanted to see her again.
"Let us go," he answered Penzance."One can call on an invalid at any time.Lady Anstruthers will forgive us."In less than an hour's time they were on their way.They laughed and talked as they rode, their horses' hoofs striking out a cheerful ringing accompaniment to their voices.There is nothing more exhilarating than the hollow, regular ring and click-clack of good hoofs going well over a fine old Roman road in the morning sunlight.They talked of the junior assistant salesman and of Miss Vanderpoel.Penzance was much pleased by the prospect of seeing "this delightful and unusual girl." He had heard stories of her, as had Lord Westholt.
He knew of old Doby's pipe, and of Mrs.Welden's respite from the Union, and though such incidents would seem mere trifles to the dweller in great towns, he had himself lived and done his work long enough in villages to know the village mind and the scale of proportions by which its gladness and sadness were measured.He knew more of all this than Mount Dunstan could, since Mount Dunstan's existence had isolated itself, from rather gloomy choice.But as he rode, Mount Dunstan knew that he liked to hear these things.There was the suggestion of new life and new thought in them, and such suggestion was good for any man--or woman, either--who had fallen into living in a dull, narrow groove.
"It is the new life in her which strikes me," he said."She has brought wealth with her, and wealth is power to do the good or evil that grows in a man's soul; but she has brought something more.She might have come here and brought all the sumptuousness of a fashionable young beauty, who drove through the village and drew people to their windows, and made clodhoppers scratch their heads and pull their forelocks, and children bob curtsies and stare.She might have come and gone and left a mind-dazzling memory and nothing else.Afew sovereigns tossed here and there would have earned her a reputation--but, by gee! to quote Selden--she has begun LIVING with them, as if her ancestors had done it for six hundred years.And what _I_ see is that if she had come without a penny in her pocket she would have done the same thing."He paused a pondering moment, and then drew a sharp breath which was an exclamation in itself."She's Life!" he said.
"She's Life itself! Good God! what a thing it is for a man or woman to be Life--instead of a mass of tissue and muscle and nerve, dragged about by the mere mechanism of living!"Penzance had listened seriously.
