“Ah, where does he come from?—that's just the question,” Monteith answered, lighting1 a cigar, and puffing2 away dubiously3. “Nobody knows. He's a mystery. He poses in the role. You'd better ask Philip; it was he who brought him here.”
“I met him accidentally in the street,” Philip answered, with an apologetic shrug4, by no means well pleased at being thus held responsible for all the stranger's moral and social vagaries5. “It's the merest chance acquaintance. I know nothing of his antecedents. I—er—I lent him a bag, and he's fastened himself upon me ever since like a leech6, and come constantly to my sister's. But I haven't the remotest idea who he is or where he hails from. He keeps his business wrapped up from all of us in the profoundest mystery.”
“He's a gentleman, anyhow,” the General put in with military decisiveness. “How manly7 of him to acknowledge at once about the cobbler being probably a near relation! Most men, you know, Christy, would have tried to hide it; HE didn't for a second. He admitted his ancestors had all been cobblers till quite a recent period.”
Philip was astonished at this verdict of the General's, for he himself, on the contrary, had noted8 with silent scorn that very remark as a piece of supreme9 and hopeless stupidity on Bertram's part. No fellow can help having a cobbler for a grandfather, of course: but he need not be such a fool as to volunteer any mention of the fact spontaneously.
“Yes, I thought it bold of him,” Monteith answered, “almost bolder than was necessary; for he didn't seem to think we should be at all surprised at it.”
The General mused10 to himself. “He's a fine soldierly fellow,” he said, gazing after the tall retreating figure. “I should like to make a dragoon of him. He's the very man for a saddle. He'd dash across country in the face of heavy guns any day with the best of them.”
“He rides well,” Philip answered, “and has a wonderful seat. I saw him on that bay mare11 of Wilder's in town the other afternoon, and I must say he rode much more like a gentleman than a cobbler.”
“Oh, he's a gentleman,” the General repeated, with unshaken conviction: “a thoroughbred gentleman.” And he scanned Philip up and down with his keen grey eye as if internally reflecting that Philip's own right to criticise12 and classify that particular species of humanity was a trifle doubtful. “I should much like to make a captain of hussars of him. He'd be splendid as a leader of irregular horse; the very man for a scrimmage!” For the General's one idea when he saw a fine specimen13 of our common race was the Zulu's or the Red Indian's—what an admirable person he would be to employ in killing14 and maiming his fellow-creatures!
“He'd be better engaged so,” the Dean murmured reflectively, “than in diffusing15 these horrid16 revolutionary and atheistical17 doctrines19.” For the Church was as usual in accord with the sword; theoretically all peace, practically all bloodshed and rapine and aggression21: and anything that was not his own opinion envisaged22 itself always to the Dean's crystallised mind as revolutionary and atheistic18.
“He's very like the duke, though,” General Claviger went on, after a moment's pause, during which everybody watched Bertram and Frida disappearing down the walk round a clump23 of syringas. “Very like the duke. And you saw he admitted some sort of relationship, though he didn't like to dwell upon it. You may be sure he's a by-blow of the family somehow. One of the Bertrams, perhaps the old duke who was out in the Crimea, may have formed an attachment24 for one of these Ingledew girls—the cobbler's sisters: I dare say they were no better in their conduct than they ought to be—and this may be the consequence.”
“I'm afraid the old duke was a man of loose life and doubtful conversation,” the Dean put in, with a tone of professional disapprobation for the inevitable25 transgressions26 of the great and the high-placed. “He didn't seem to set the example he ought to have done to his poorer brethren.”
“Oh, he was a thorough old rip, the duke, if it comes to that,” General Claviger responded, twirling his white moustache. “And so's the present man—a rip of the first water. They're a regular bad lot, the Bertrams, root and stock. They never set an example of anything to anybody—bar horse-breeding,—as far as I'm aware; and even at that their trainers have always fairly cheated 'em.”
“The present duke's a most exemplary churchman,” the Dean interposed, with Christian27 charity for a nobleman of position. “He gave us a couple of thousand last year for the cathedral restoration fund.”
“And that would account,” Philip put in, returning abruptly28 to the previous question, which had been exercising him meanwhile, “for the peculiarly distinguished30 air of birth and breeding this man has about him.” For Philip respected a duke from the bottom of his heart, and cherished the common Britannic delusion31 that a man who has been elevated to that highest degree in our barbaric rank-system must acquire at the same time a nobler type of physique and countenance32, exactly as a Jew changes his Semitic features for the European shape on conversion33 and baptism.
“Oh, dear, no,” the General answered in his most decided34 voice. “The Bertrams were never much to look at in any way: and as for the old duke, he was as insignificant35 a little monster of red-haired ugliness as ever you'd see in a day's march anywhere. If he hadn't been a duke, with a rent-roll of forty odd thousand a year, he'd never have got that beautiful Lady Camilla to consent to marry him. But, bless you, women 'll do anything for the strawberry leaves. It isn't from the Bertrams this man gets his good looks. It isn't from the Bertrams. Old Ingledew's daughters are pretty enough girls. If their aunts were like 'em, it's there your young friend got his air of distinction.”
“We never know who's who nowadays,” the Dean murmured softly. Being himself the son of a small Scotch36 tradesman, brought up in the Free Kirk, and elevated into his present exalted37 position by the early intervention38 of a Balliol scholarship and a studentship of Christ Church, he felt at liberty to moralise in such non-committing terms on the gradual decay of aristocratic exclusiveness.
“I don't see it much matters what a man's family was,” the General said stoutly39, “so long as he's a fine, well-made, soldierly fellow, like this Ingledew body, capable of fighting for his Queen and country. He's an Australian, I suppose. What tall chaps they do send home, to be sure! Those Australians are going to lick us all round the field presently.”
“That's the curious part of it,” Philip answered. “Nobody knows what he is. He doesn't even seem to be a British subject. He calls himself an Alien. And he speaks most disrespectfully at times—well, not exactly perhaps of the Queen in person, but at any rate of the monarchy40.”
“Utterly destitute41 of any feeling of respect for any power of any sort, human or divine,” the Dean remarked, with clerical severity.
“For my part,” Monteith interposed, knocking his ash off savagely42, “I think the man's a swindler; and the more I see of him, the less I like him. He's never explained to us how he came here at all, or what the dickens he came for. He refuses to say where he lives or what's his nationality. He poses as a sort of unexplained Caspar Hauser. In my opinion, these mystery men are always impostors. He had no letters of introduction to anybody at Brackenhurst; and he thrust himself upon Philip in a most peculiar29 way; ever since which he's insisted upon coming to my house almost daily. I don't like him myself: it's Mrs. Monteith who insists upon having him here.”
“He fascinates me,” the General said frankly43. “I don't at all wonder the women like him. As long as he was by, though I don't agree with one word he says, I couldn't help looking at him and listening to him intently.”
“So he does me,” Philip answered, since the General gave him the cue. “And I notice it's the same with people in the train. They always listen to him, though sometimes he preaches the most extravagant44 doctrines—oh, much worse than anything he's said here this afternoon. He's really quite eccentric.”
“What sort of doctrines?” the Dean inquired, with languid zeal45. “Not, I hope, irreligious?”
“Oh, dear, no,” Philip answered; “not that so much. He troubles himself very little, I think, about religion. Social doctrines, don't you know; such very queer views—about women, and so forth46.”
“Indeed?” the Dean said quickly, drawing himself up very stiff: for you touch the ark of God for the modern cleric when you touch the question of the relations of the sexes. “And what does he say? It's highly undesirable47 men should go about the country inciting48 to rebellion on such fundamental points of moral order in public railway carriages.” For it is a peculiarity49 of minds constituted like the Dean's (say, ninety-nine per cent. of the population) to hold that the more important a subject is to our general happiness, the less ought we all to think about it and discuss it.
“Why, he has very queer ideas,” Philip went on, slightly hesitating; for he shared the common vulgar inability to phrase exposition of a certain class of subjects in any but the crudest and ugliest phraseology. “He seems to think, don't you know, the recognised forms of vice—well, what all young men do—you know what I mean—Of course it's not right, but still they do them—” The Dean nodded a cautious acquiescence50. “He thinks they're horribly wrong and distressing51; but he makes nothing at all of the virtue52 of decent girls and the peace of families.”
“If I found a man preaching that sort of doctrine20 to my wife or my daughters,” Monteith said savagely, “I know what I'd do—I'd put a bullet through him.”
“And quite right, too,” the General murmured approvingly.
Professional considerations made the Dean refrain from endorsing53 this open expression of murderous sentiment in its fullest form; a clergyman ought always to keep up some decent semblance54 of respect for the Gospel and the Ten Commandments—or, at least, the greater part of them. So he placed the tips of his fingers and thumbs together in the usual deliberative clerical way, gazed blankly through the gap, and answered with mild and perfunctory disapprobation: “A bullet would perhaps be an unnecessarily severe form of punishment to mete55 out; but I confess I could excuse the man who was so far carried away by his righteous indignation as to duck the fellow in the nearest horse-pond.”
“Well, I don't know about that,” Philip replied, with an outburst of unwonted courage and originality56; for he was beginning to like, and he had always from the first respected, Bertram. “There's something about the man that makes me feel—even when I differ from him most—that he believes it all, and is thoroughly57 in earnest. I dare say I'm wrong, but I always have a notion he's a better man than me, in spite of all his nonsense,—higher and clearer and differently constituted,—and that if only I could climb to just where he has got, perhaps I should see things in the same light that he does.”
It was a wonderful speech for Philip—a speech above himself; but, all the same, by a fetch of inspiration he actually made it. Intercourse58 with Bertram had profoundly impressed his feeble nature. But the Dean shook his head.
“A very undesirable young man for you to see too much of, I'm sure, Mr. Christy,” he said, with marked disapprobation. For, in the Dean's opinion, it was a most dangerous thing for a man to think, especially when he's young; thinking is, of course, so likely to unsettle him!
The General, on the other hand, nodded his stern grey head once or twice reflectively.
“He's a remarkable59 young fellow,” he said, after a pause; “a most remarkable young fellow. As I said before, he somehow fascinates me. I'd immensely like to put that young fellow into a smart hussar uniform, mount him on a good charger of the Punjaub breed, and send him helter-skelter, pull-devil, pull-baker, among my old friends the Duranis on the North-West frontier.”
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1
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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2
puffing
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| v.使喷出( puff的现在分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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dubiously
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| adv.可疑地，怀疑地 | |
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shrug
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| v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等) | |
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vagaries
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| n.奇想( vagary的名词复数 )；异想天开；异常行为；难以预测的情况 | |
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6
leech
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| n.水蛭，吸血鬼，榨取他人利益的人；vt.以水蛭吸血；vi.依附于别人 | |
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7
manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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8
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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mused
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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11
mare
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| n.母马，母驴 | |
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12
criticise
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| v.批评，评论；非难 | |
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13
specimen
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| n.样本，标本 | |
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killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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15
diffusing
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| （使光）模糊，漫射，漫散( diffuse的现在分词 )； （使）扩散； （使）弥漫； （使）传播 | |
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16
horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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atheistical
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| adj.无神论（者）的 | |
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atheistic
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| adj.无神论者的 | |
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19
doctrines
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| n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 )；教义；学说；（政府政策的）正式声明 | |
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doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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aggression
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| n.进攻，侵略，侵犯，侵害 | |
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envisaged
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| 想像，设想( envisage的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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clump
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| n.树丛，草丛；vi.用沉重的脚步行走 | |
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attachment
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| n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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transgressions
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| n.违反，违法，罪过( transgression的名词复数 ) | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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29
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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30
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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delusion
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| n.谬见，欺骗，幻觉，迷惑 | |
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32
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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33
conversion
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| n.转化，转换，转变 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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scotch
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| n.伤口，刻痕；苏格兰威士忌酒；v.粉碎，消灭，阻止；adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
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37
exalted
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| adj.(地位等)高的，崇高的；尊贵的，高尚的 | |
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intervention
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| n.介入，干涉，干预 | |
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stoutly
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| adv.牢固地，粗壮的 | |
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40
monarchy
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| n.君主，最高统治者；君主政体，君主国 | |
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41
destitute
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| adj.缺乏的；穷困的 | |
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42
savagely
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| adv. 野蛮地，残酷地 | |
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43
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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44
extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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45
zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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46
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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47
undesirable
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| adj.不受欢迎的，不良的，不合意的，讨厌的；n.不受欢迎的人，不良分子 | |
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48
inciting
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| 刺激的，煽动的 | |
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49
peculiarity
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| n.独特性，特色；特殊的东西；怪癖 | |
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50
acquiescence
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| n.默许；顺从 | |
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51
distressing
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| a.使人痛苦的 | |
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52
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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53
endorsing
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| v.赞同( endorse的现在分词 )；在（尤指支票的）背面签字；在（文件的）背面写评论；在广告上说本人使用并赞同某产品 | |
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54
semblance
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| n.外貌，外表 | |
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55
mete
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| v.分配；给予 | |
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56
originality
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| n.创造力，独创性；新颖 | |
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57
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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58
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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59
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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