“You slept hard last night?” he asked of Alastair. “How came you here?”
“On foot. For ten days I have been in an older world with a man who is a kind of king there.” He spoke for a little of Midwinter, but Johnson was unimpressed.
“I think I have heard these boasts before, sir. When a man decries civility and exalts barbarism, it is because he is ill fitted to excel in good society. So when one praises rusticity it is because he is denied the joys of town. A man may be tired of the country, but when he is tired of London he is tired of life.”
“Yet the taste can be defended,” said Alastair. “A lover of natural beauty will be impatient of too long a sojourn in town, and if he would indulge his fancy he must leave the highway.”
Mr. Johnson raised his head and puffed out his cheeks.
“No, sir, I do not assent to this fashionable cant of natural beauty, nor will I rave like a green girl over scenery. One part of the earth is very much as another to me, provided it support life. The most beautiful garden is that which produces most fruits, and the fairest stream that which is fullest of fish. As for mountains—”
The food and the wine had flushed Mr. Johnson’s face, and his uncouth gestures had become more violent. Now with a wheel of his right hand he swept two glasses to the floor and narrowly missed Edom’s head.
“Mountains!” he cried, “I deny any grandeur in the spectacle. There is more emotion for me in a furlong of Cheapside than in the contemplation of mere elevated bodies.”
Edom, with an eye on the port, was whispering to Alastair that they would soon be contemplating another elevated body, when there came a knocking and the landlady entered.
“Her ladyship’s services to you, sirs,” she announced, “and she expects Mr. Johnson to wait upon her after the next half-hour, and she begs him to bring also the gentleman recently arrived with whom she believes she has the honour of an acquaintance.” The landlady, having got the message by heart, delivered it with the speed and monotony of a bellman. Mr. Johnson rose to his feet and bowed.
“Our service to my lady,” he said, “and we will obey her commands. Our service, mark you,” and he inclined towards Alastair. The summons seemed to have turned his thoughts from wine, for he refused the bottle when it was passed to him.
“The dear child is refreshed, it would seem,” he said. “She found this morning’s journey irksome, for she has little patience. Reading she cannot abide, and besides the light was poor.”
“Is madam possessed of many accomplishments?” Alastair asked, because it was clear that the other expected him to speak on the subject.
“Why no, sir. It is not right for a gentlewoman to be trained like a performing ape. Adventitious accomplishments may be possessed by any rank, but one can always distinguish the born gentlewoman.”
Then he repented.
“But I would not have you think that she is of dull wits. Nay, she is the most qualitied lady I have ever seen. She has an admirable quick mind which she puts honestly to yours. I have had rare discussions with her. Reflect, sir; she has lived always in the broad sunshine of life, and has had no spur to form her wits save her own fancy. A good mind in such a one is a greater credit than with those who are witty for a livelihood. ’Twill serve her well in matrimony, for no woman is the worse for sense and knowledge. For the present, being not three weeks married, her mind is in a happy confusion.”
He smiled tenderly as he spoke, like a father speaking of a child.
“She is happy, I think,” he said, and repeated the phrase three times. “You have seen her,” he turned to Alastair. “You can confirm my belief that she is happy?”
“She is most deeply in love,” was the reply.
“And transmutes it into happiness,” said Johnson, and repeated with a rolling voice some lines of poetry, beating time with his hand,
“Love various minds does variously inspire;
It stirs in gentle bosoms gentle fire
Like that of incense on the altar laid.”
“There,” said he, “Dryden drew from a profundity which Pope could not reach. But it is time for us to be waiting on my lady.” He hoisted himself from his chair, brushed the crumbs from his waistcoat, straightened his rusty cravat, and opened the door with a bow to the others. He was in the best of spirits.
The landlady was waiting to show the two upstairs, Edom having meantime retired to smoke a pipe in the bar. As they ascended, the gale was still pounding on the roof and an unshuttered lattice showed a thick drift of snow on the outer sill, but over the tumult came the echo of a clear voice singing. To Alastair’s surprise it was a song he knew, the very song that Midwinter had played two nights before. “Diana and her darling crew” sang the voice, and as the door opened it was Diana herself that seemed to the young man to be walking to meet him. Vera incessu patuit Dea.
Mrs. Peckover had dressed her hair, which the coach journey had disarranged, but to Alastair’s eye her air was childlike, as contrasted with the hooped and furbelowed ladies of the French court. Her skirts were straight and unmodish, so that her limbs moved freely, and the slim young neck was encircled with her only jewel—a string of pearls. The homely inn chamber, which till a few hours before had been but the Brown Room, was now to him a hall in a palace, a glade in the greenwood, or wherever else walk princesses and nymphs.
She gave him her hand and then dropped into a chair, looking at him earnestly
