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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Harry Joscelyn; vol. 2
of 3
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Title: Harry Joscelyn; vol. 2 of 3

Author: Mrs. Oliphant

Release date: September 9, 2020 [eBook #63158]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARRY

——

VOL. II.

HARRY JOSCELYN.
BY

MRS. OLIPHANT

AUTHOR OF

“The Chronicles of Carlingford,”

&c., &c.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

LONDON:
HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,
13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1881.
All rights reserved.

HARRY JOSCELYN.
CHAPTER I., II., III., IV., V., VI., VII.,
VIII., IX., X., XI., XII., XIII., XIV., XV.
 CHAPTER I.

HARRY’S RESOLUTION.

T HERE is nothing that grows and strengthens with thinking of it like the
sense of personal injury. Harry Joscelyn had been very angry when he
left home; but he was not half so angry at that moment as when he
looked out of the window of the railway carriage, as the train swept through
the valley, and saw in the distance the village roofs, over which, had there
been light enough, and had his eyes served him so far, he might have seen
the White House seated, firm and defiant, upon the Fellside. And every mile
that he travelled his wrath and indignation grew. When he reached
Liverpool he had formed his purpose beyond the reach of argument, or
anything that reason could say; and reason said very little in the general
excitement of his being. He had been turned out of his home, he had been
refused the money by which he thought he could have made his fortune. He
felt himself cast off by everybody belonging to him. His mother had
permitted that final outrage, he thought; for surely she could have found
means of help if she had chosen to exert herself. His Uncle Henry had
bought himself off, and got rid of a troublesome applicant by the gift of that
twenty pounds. They were all against him. He thought of it and thought of it
till they seemed to be all his enemies, and at last he came to believe that
they were glad to get quit of him, to be done with him. This was the aspect
under which he contemplated his relations with his family when he got to
Liverpool; and the effect upon him was that of a settled disgust with all the
ordinary habits of his life, and its fashion altogether. When he thought of
returning to the office, to his former routine as clerk, the idea made him
sick. It seemed to him that he could do anything, or go anywhere, rather
than this. But though the impulse of abandoning all he had been or done
hitherto was instantaneous, he could not quite settle in a moment, with the
same rapidity, what he was to do, or be, in the future. He crossed to the
other side of the great river with his little bag of “needments,” the linen
Mrs. Eadie had bought for him and a few other indispensable things which
he had himself procured, and lived in one of the villages there, which have
now grown into towns, watching the ships go by, and leaving his mind open
to any wandering impulse that might lay hold upon it. In these days the
River Mersey was a great sight, as probably it is still. To the idle young
man, accustomed to some share in the perpetual commotion of that coming
and going, there was meaning in every one of the multitudinous ships that
lay at anchor in the great stream, or glided out, full-sail, to the sea, or were
poked and dragged away by a restless, toiling little slave of a steam-tug,
carrying off its prey like one of the devils of the Inferno. He knew where
they were going, and what they had to bring from afar, and all about their
bills of lading and the passengers they carried. The river had not to him that
grandeur of prose which becomes poetry, and fact which turns to romance,
in less accustomed minds; but was only a huge highway, a big street full of
crowds coming and going, over which he brooded, wondering where he
should plunge into the tide of movement, and how take his first step out of
the horizons which hitherto had bounded him. He did not say, as his mother
might have done, “Oh, for the wings of a dove!” but he put that profound
breath of human impatience into nineteenth century prose, and said to
himself, “If I had but a steamboat, a yacht, anything to take me out of reach
of all of them, where they will never hear of me again!” He was not rich
enough, however, to hope for a yacht, so that all he could really do was to
decide what “boat” he would go with, and whether he should turn his steps
across the Atlantic, or choose another quarter of the world in which to
become another man.
He went to the office one day, as Philip Selby discovered, and asked for
the amount of salary due to him, and purchased a few more necessary
articles of clothing; and he wrote to the persons to whom he owed money,
telling them that he was about to leave Liverpool, but would send them
their money without fail within a certain period. He did not know how this
was to be done, but he was resolute to do it, and he had no more doubt on
the matter than he had that he should perfectly succeed in his plunge into
the unknown. But after he had done this he remained for some days longer
by the river-side with a self-contradictory impulse, watching the ships go
by, and putting off the execution of his project. Where was he to go? To
resolve to give up his own identity, to separate himself for ever from his
family, and all his belongings, and all his antecedents, was easy; but to
make up his mind which boat he was to go by, and whither he was to betake
himself, was much more difficult. America was so hackneyed, he said to
himself, with that fastidious impatience and disgust which is one of the
characteristics of a sick soul: everybody goes to America; it would be the
first idea that would occur to everyone; and this made him throw away that
first suggestion angrily, as if it had been an offence; but if not to America,
then where? He tossed about various names in his mind, satisfied with
none, and when at last he made his decision, it was made in a moment, with
the same kind of sick disgust and impatience as had made him reject the
other ideas as they presented themselves. He was crossing the river to
Liverpool, leaning over the side of the ferry steamboat lest anybody should
see and recognize him, and in his own mind passing in review the
advantages and disadvantages of all the ships he passed. The Mersey was
very full and very bright, the sun shining, a brisk breeze blowing, the sky
blue, the great estuary throwing up white edges of spray and leaping here
and there against the bows of an out-going boat, in a manner which boded
little comfort to unaccustomed sailors outside the shelter of its banks. The
opposite shore was still clothed with trees beginning to grow green in the
earliest tints of spring, and not unpleasantly mingled with the beginnings of
docks and traces of mercantile invasion. Nature, as yet, had not given up
her harmonizing power; the touches of colour on the masts, a national flag
flying here and there, even the sailors’ washing fluttering among the yards,
was an addition to the brilliancy of the spring lights. The ferry-boat was full
of people, though it was not the hour for business men to be moving about.
The freight was a more varied one than that mass of black-coated figures
which weighed it down to the water’s edge in the morning. But Harry
turned his back upon them all, and looked over the side, watching in a
dream the long trail of water which slid under the bows and was caught and
churned by the paddle-wheel. The motion, as he watched it thus, soothed
him, and took the place of thinking in his mind, carrying him vaguely, he
knew not whither, just as he would fain have been carried beyond the ken of
men. He was waiting the guidance of chance, not caring what became of
him. Something caught his ear suddenly as the ferry-boat rustled along by
the side of a long low steamer with raking masts and short funnels, which
lay not far from the bank.
“I wouldn’t go in that boat for the world,” some one said. The remark
caught Harry’s ear, and roused him into mere wantonness of opposition.
“Why?” he said to himself aloud. It did not matter whether it was said loud
or low, nobody but himself could hear it as he leaned over the rushing
water. “I’ll go.” He was in such a condition of perversity that this was all he
wanted to fix his purpose.
He landed on the Liverpool side, no longer languidly, but with the air of
a man who has something to do, and went straight to examine the ship and
ascertain where to apply for his passage. She was bound for Leghorn. He
went stepping briskly forth to the office of the agent, and then with a
mixture of economy and gentility, still conscious of the importance of the
family from which he was about to cut himself off, took a passage in what
was called the second cabin.
“What name?” said the clerk. What name? he had not considered this
question. Should he give his own name, thus leaving a clue to anyone who
chose to inquire? The doubt, the question was momentary: “Isaac Oliver,”
he said, and looked the man in the face as if defying contradiction. But the
clerk had no idea of contradicting him; as well Isaac Oliver as Harry
Joscelyn to the stranger, who knew nothing about either. Five minutes after
he could not tell what had put this name into his head; but his fate was
decided, and beyond correction. He went home with a curious feeling in his
mind, not sure whether it was amusement, or shame, or anger with himself
and fate. It was all three together. He was himself no longer, he had thrown
away his birthright. What had tempted him to take the name of Isaac Oliver
he could not explain. He laughed, but his laugh was not pleasant. He was
annoyed and appalled and disgusted with himself, but he could not alter that
now. All the evening he roamed about the riverbank, looking at the ships
going out and in, and the little steamers rustling and fuming across the
gleaming water, and all the many coloured symbols and ceaseless industry
of the scene, with a strange sense of having lost himself, of having so to
speak died in the middle of his life. He could not get over it. He was living
in a little inn which had been turned into a sort of suburban tea-garden,
instead of the little neat ale-house it once was. The weather was very fine
and warm, though it was so early in the season, and every steamboat
disgorged a crowd of visitors to sit under the half-open foliage of the trees,
and in the damp little arbours. Harry avoided all these visitors in the fear of
meeting some one who might know him. Harry! he was not Harry any
longer. The mere giving of the false name had changed him. He did not
know who he was. He was confused and confounded with the sudden
difference. Had some one called out Harry Joscelyn quickly, he thought that
it would no longer have occurred to him to answer. He was not Harry
Joscelyn; and who was he? The name he had chosen, or which some
malicious spirit had put into his head, seemed to float before him wherever
he went. He shuffled in his walk unconsciously as he fled from himself
along the margin of the great flood. What had he done? He had abandoned
not only his own name and family, but his own condition, his place in life.
Wherever he went, he would be known as a peasant, a common
countryman, he thought, never thinking in his pre-occupation that the
strangers among whom he was going knew just as much about Isaac Oliver
as about Harry Joscelyn. The night grew dark, and the great river gleamed
with a thousand sparkles of light like glowworms. Little vessels, each with
a coloured lantern, went darting across and across, lights swung steadily
with a sort of dreamy regular cadence from the stationary ships. The stars
above were not more manifold than those little lamps below. The quiet of
the night had hushed the sounds of the great city on the other side, and all
the heavy hammers and the din of machinery: but still life was busy,
coming and going, darting on a hundred messages; pilot boats steaming out
to sea, little dark tugboats bringing back cargoes of souls out of the
unknown. But Harry thought of nothing save of the strange, unpremeditated
step he had taken; that one incident filled all the earth to him; a momentary
impulse, a deed that was scarcely his, and yet he felt that it would colour all
his life. He stayed out till the passenger boats had stopped and all the
visitors were gone. The little inn was shut up and dark, all but one little
querulous candle sitting up for him, when he went home: home! he called
this temporary refuge by that sacred name involuntarily—just such a home
he now said bitterly, as he would have for the rest of his life. Fortunately
next day the Leghorn boat was to sail, and his new start would be made
without time to think about it any more.
Isaac Oliver took possession of his berth next morning. He went on
board early, and lounged about the deck all day. For the first time this
morning it occurred to him that they might send after him, that his departure
could not have passed altogether without notice among his friends. He had
not thought of this before, but now it came upon him with some force. They
would try to stop him at the last moment. The very name he had chosen
would betray him, for who but Harry Joscelyn would call himself Isaac
Oliver? He kept on the further side of the ship, leaning over the bulwarks,
and watched everybody who went or came with jealous eyes. Tardy
passengers came on board one after another, bringing luggage and new
items of cargo and provisions; there was scarcely a moment without some
arrival, and every one of them, Harry felt, must be for him. When at last the
gangway was detached, the anchor weighed, the latest idler or porter put on
shore, and the very screw in motion, he felt sure there must be some last
attempt, some appeal from the quay. “Have you one of the name of Harry
Joscelyn there?” he thought he could actually hear them calling; and saw
the rapid examination of the list of passengers, and the shaking of heads of
the captain and his immediate assistants, who were standing together high
above all the others. When there could be no longer any doubt that the
steamboat was off, and that no appeal of the kind had been made, a quick
and hot sense of offence came over Harry. He had been alarmed by the idea
of being identified and stopped at the outset of his voyage: but as soon as he
was certain that he was to be allowed to proceed peaceably on that voyage,
his heart burned within him with a sense of injury. Now it was indeed all
ended and all over, his life, his name, everything to which he had been
accustomed in the past. He went below to his berth, with a sense of
complete abandonment and desolation which it would be impossible to
describe. It appeared to him that until now he had only been playing with
the idea, amusing himself with all the preparations for a change which
would never really take place, which somehow would be stopped and
prevented at the end. But nobody had put forth a finger to stop him, and
now the end was accomplished and beyond all remedy. Up to the time he
came on shipboard he had not thought of being stopped, but now he felt as
if he had expected it all the time, and was grievously injured and heartlessly
abandoned by all the world and by all his relations, not one of whom would
lift a finger on his behalf. He went down to his shabby berth in the second
cabin, and felt much disposed, like his mother, to turn his face to the wall.
But, perhaps fortunately for Harry, the sea was rough, and when the vessel
steamed out of the Mersey and felt the full commotion of the waves outside,
he was sick, and not in a condition to care for anything.
In this way he lost the thread of his trouble for the first two days: and
then novelty and excitement began to tell upon him, and he came altogether
to himself. No, not to himself: he did not feel clear about who he was or
what. He came to—Isaac Oliver, looking that new personage in the face
with a bewildered awe of him and wonder at him. Isaac Oliver! who, he
wondered vaguely, could he be? not a son of old Isaac, who had only little
children—a nephew or a cousin, some off-shoot of the family, if the Olivers
could be called a family, a suggestion at which he smiled in spite of
himself. That must be who he was, the offspring of a race of peasants, no
better blood, no other pretensions. The Joscelyns were a very different class
of people, but he had given them up, he had shaken off all bonds between
them and himself. “In for a penny, in for a pound,” he said to himself,
setting his face to it with a smile, as the steamboat bore up along the Italian
coast, and “the old miraculous mountains hove in sight.” Harry did not feel
any special interest in Italy: he was of the class who never travel, and
understand but little why one place should be more interesting than another.
And, indeed, Leghorn does not sound like Italy to any traveller. What he
knew of it was that it was a busy sea-port, where there were merchants’
offices and a thriving trade. He did not interest himself much about
anything else. He had his living to make, alone and unbefriended in a
strange country: need was that he should collect himself and pluck up a
heart and think what he was to do, now that he was so near the place of his
destination—or, at least, not what he, but young Isaac Oliver, was to do.
Would any merchant take him in without character, without introduction or
testimonial? This thought was like a cold breath going through and through
him, when he began to think. But he had still a little money in his pocket,
and could afford to wait and look about him for a week or two. There is
always something turning up in a busy place. And Harry, accustomed to
occupation all his life, could not believe that he would ever starve where
there was anything to do.
They had touched at various other ports on the way, whose chief claims
to be visited were such as Harry had little understanding of, and the
eagerness of his fellow-passengers to get on shore and see these places had
surprised him. For his own part, he did not see the fun of going to see a
succession of churches and pictures. He had seen but few pictures in his
life, and he had never been taught that they were of much importance. He
had, indeed, privately, an honest contempt for such things, though he said
little about it. He was disposed to ask, “What are you all staring at?” when
he was brought face to face with an early Master, a thing which he would
have banished into the darkest corner had it been his. But when he got into
the harbour at Leghorn he began to feel himself once more dans son
assiette. He knew what the docks meant, and appreciated the masts of the
shipping better than if they had been the most delicate works of art. It was
nothing to Liverpool, but it was something he could understand and felt at
home with. He landed in better spirits than he had experienced for a very
long time. He felt a moral certainty that he should “get on” here.
But what a shock it was when the unaccustomed Englishman stepped
first on shore, and found himself in the midst of a strange life, of which he
did not understand even the first word! He knew very well, of course, that it
was a foreign place, and that English was not spoken there; but he never
had realized that it would be impossible by speaking loudly, or using a sort
of broken English, or some other simple contrivance, to make the barbarous
natives understand. Even an individual much better educated than poor
Harry may be excused if the shock of that extraordinary solitude and
isolation which surrounds him when he finds himself incapable of
understanding a word of what is going on, is a surprise and irritation as well
as a discomfort. He stood on the quay with his little portmanteau by him—
after having been rowed over endless links of basins, all full of clear green
sea-water, cut like a great jelly by the progress of the boat, to the landing-
place—and stood there aghast, and, indeed, agape, hustled by the crowd,
and with a grinning porter on each side of him making offers of
incomprehensible service. He would not deliver himself over into the hands
of any such harpies he was resolved, not even when they addressed him in a
word or two of English, though the sound was as balm to his ears. He stood
over his portmanteau and angrily pushed the facchini away, but at last got
hold of a lad whose appearance pleased him, who was tidier than the rest.
To him Harry said “Hotel?” in a sort of half-questioning, half-suggestive
way; but this was not enough to get him clear of the officious crowd, who
flew at him with names which conveyed no meaning to his ears. Harry felt
like a man caught in a hailstorm as he was pelted with those big sonorous
syllables. He grew furious with confusion and bewilderment. He had not
been thought specially strong on the Fells, but here his North-country
muscles told. He pushed away the crowd, who he thought were making a
joke of him, and took up his own portmanteau. “The gentleman is all right,”
said some one beside him; “you have no education, you are without
manners, you others,” and somebody took off a hat and made a salutation,
somebody who reached to about Harry’s elbow. It was civil, and the first
part of the sentence had been said in English, so Harry, learning by
experience, conquered his wrath, and was civil too. “Can I perhaps indicate
a hotel?” this new personage said; “Mister is an English?” Harry stood still
and looked down upon his new acquaintance, not quite clear as to the
meaning of what he said. He was a little man, small and dainty, dressed
with quaint care, with high shirt-collars, and a large black cravat tied in a
bow, and the most shining of black hats, which he took off when he spoke.
He was olive-complexioned, with big, dark, soft Italian eyes. “Mister is an
English?” he said; “by paternity I am an English, too. I will indicate a hotel
if the gentleman chooses. It will deliver him from la canaglia, what you call
this rabbel,” he added, with an ingratiating smile, and a great rattle of his
r’s. It was mere good-nature, but Harry was by no means sure of this, and
he knew that foreigners were deceivers. “Thanks, I won’t trouble you,” he
said, abruptly, and lifting his portmanteau—it was not a big one—strode
away. He felt angry and depressed, yet excited. The astonished look of the
little man, who made him another bow, and replaced his hat with a shrug of
his shoulders at the Englishman’s want of manners, added to his
discomfiture. Perhaps he had made a fool of himself by refusing those good
offices which were offered to him, Harry thought. Perhaps he would have
been a bigger fool had he accepted. Perhaps they were all in a conspiracy to
rob him. He strode on and on, somewhat ashamed of his own appearance
with the portmanteau, as if he were too poor to pay anyone to carry it, and
thoroughly bewildered altogether amid the sounds and sights which he did
not understand. But at the end he got into an inn where there was some one
who spoke English, not such a usual accomplishment in these days as it is
now; and where he got a room which was very strange of aspect to the
untravelled young man. The half hour which he passed there, seated upon
the odd little bed, with his portmanteau at his feet upon the tiled floor, all so
strange, so desolate to Harry, was as terrible a moment as he had ever
passed in his life. His very soul was discouraged, sunk low in his breast
with a kind of physical drop and downfall. It was all he could do not to
burst out crying in his forlornness and helplessness and solitude. What
could he do in a place where he did not understand a word? In many cases
novelty is delightful, but there are some in which it is the most dreadful of
all depressing circumstances. Everything, from the dingy tiles under his
feet, and the dark eating-room downstairs, with its unaccustomed smells, up
to the blaze of the Italian noon, and the incomprehensible tongue that
everybody spoke, weighed upon Harry. He covered his face with his hands,
sitting there upon his bed. What evil fate had led him to this unknown
place? What should he do without even a name that belonged to him,
without a friend? A gasp came into his throat, and the hand that covered his
eyes was wet. He felt himself bowed down to the very ground.
After thus “giving way,” however, Harry braced himself up, and
recovered at least the appearance of courage. He made the best toilette he
could by the help of the small washing utensils, which were not so entirely
abhorrent to English customs then as they are now—for baths were not very
general, and washing-basins were but small, in the first quarter, if not the
first half, of this century. And then he sallied forth refreshed—into a new
world.
 CHAPTER II.

A NEW WORLD.

H ARRY strayed about the town during the afternoon, losing his way, and
finding it again; but got back to the hotel before the important hour of
dinner, of which the English-speaking waiter had informed him. He
was less amused than depressed with all he saw. The perpetual talk that
seemed to be going on around him—sharp, varied, high-pitched,
incomprehensible—gave him at first a sense of offence, as if all these
people were doing it on purpose in order to bewilder him, and afterwards a
profound feeling of discouragement. He was not clever he was aware. He
had never been very great at his school work, and how was he to
accomplish the first preliminary, the very initial step of existence here, the
learning of the language, to which he had no clue, and of which he could
not make out one word? It seemed to him as if years must elapse before he
could master the very rudiments of the new tongue; and how was he to seek
for work, or to get work to do, not knowing the very A B C of the life about
him? Harry went doubling about the unfamiliar streets, looking with wistful
eyes at every passer-by who had the look of an Englishman, and asking
himself what he was to do. He did not seem to have any spirit left for the
uphill work of learning a language. There rose up before him a vision of the
exercises which he had once laboured at, daubing himself with ink, and of
the verbs which he had got by heart overnight only to forget them in the
morning. To think that he could not even ask his way! Wherever he strayed
he looked at the people helplessly, as if he had been dumb, and anxiously
examined all the street corners, without venturing to approach any shop, or
lay himself open to any encounter. He was more fortunate than might have
been expected in this point, for he found the right street corner at last, and
the house, with its strange old courtyard, and the long dark sala which
looked into it, and in which the guests were already gathering. The house
had a good reputation, and the large room was nearly full. Harry, who had
never seen anything of the kind before, saw the people take their places,
each appropriating his own turned down chair, and half finished bottle of
wine, and looked for his own place with a curious sense of the everyday
character to the others of all these proceedings, which to him were so
unusual. Yesterday, at the same hour, no doubt they had all been here, and
last year, and as long as anybody could recollect, munching a slice from the
long Italian loaf, the yard of bread which of itself astonished his simple-
minded ignorance. To think that with such an air of routine and long
establishment this dinner should have been happening methodically every
day while he was pursuing his work at Liverpool, or taking his holiday at
home. At home! The words sounded like a bitter sarcasm to the young man,
who had no home—who had now no identity, no self to fall back upon, but
had begun to exist, so to speak, only a few days ago. And to think this table,
with all its soils and steams, should have been waiting for him all this time!
“ ’Ere, Sarr, ’ere,” said the English-speaking waiter, his black eyes
rolling in his head with pride and pleasure in this exhibition of his gift of
languages. He was holding the back of a chair which had been carefully
turned down, and was placed between a fat old Italian, with an enormous
depth of double chin, and a small figure, which Harry recognised at once as
that of the man who had spoken to him on the quay. “De gentelman speak
English,” said the waiter, bowing with amiability and pleasure. Harry, it is
to be feared, did not appreciate the exertions made in his behalf. The little
stranger, on his side, was as smiling and bland as the attendant, delighted to
make himself agreeable. They both thought it the most pleasant thing in the
world to surprise the sulky and speechless Englishman with a companion to
whom he could talk. “Mister have found his way after all to the Leone,”
said his friend, “I wish myself joy of it. It is what I most did desire. He is
the best hotel, the very best hotel in all Livorno. Most of the strangers, what
we call forestieri, find their ways here. Mister will find himself very
comfortable; the kitchen is excellent, and the chambers—the chambers!”
here the little man spread out his hands with ecstatic admiration, “so clean,
so comfortable; everything an Englishman desire.”
Harry was cross, and he was suspicious. He thought the reappearance of
his first acquaintance looked like a conspiracy, and that probably between
the man and the waiter it was an understood thing that the Englishman, who
was so ignorant, should be made to pay for his initiation into foreign ways.
But he had no intention of being made to pay if he could possibly help it.
He had not the slightest understanding of the waiter’s benevolent wish to
make him comfortable, or the innocent satisfaction of the other, at once in
showing off himself and his acquirements and showing kindness to a
stranger. Harry did not realize the national character in both, which made
them pleased to serve him, and anxiously on the watch for the look of
pleasure which they anticipated as their reward. An English servant would
have looked on with anticipations of another kind. He would have watched
to see the stranger’s hand stealing into his pocket: and on this point no
doubt Antonio had as sharp an eye as anyone; but his Italian soul, asked for
something more; he wanted to see a glow of pleasure in the face of the
person to whom he had just, as he thought, done a service. Harry refused to
pay in this wise. His countenance, somewhat dark before, settled down into
a heavier gloom. He drew in his chair to the table roughly, losing part of his
companion’s address: and he did not look at the young man who was
talking to him, or give him any recompense for the effort he was making.
After a while he made a remark, but it was not a very civil one. “Why do
you call me Mister?” was what he said.
The stranger looked at him, complacent still, but yet a trifle abashed
—“Because,” he said, stroking a small moustache, and fixing his eyes upon
Harry with a smiling yet deprecating glance, “I do not know the
gentleman’s name.”
“Even if you don’t know a fellow’s name,” said Harry, ruthless, “it isn’t
English to say Mister. Mister is a title of contempt.” Here the horrified look
of his new acquaintance made him pause. “I mean when it’s used alone
without the name. Low people sometimes use it so—but nobody who
speaks decent English,” Harry said. As he spoke the stranger’s olive
countenance caught flame and grew crimson. He laughed an embarrassed,
uncomfortable little laugh.
“It is that I am mistaken,” he said; “I have not spoke English moch. The
gentleman will pardon my error. My name is Paolo Thompson,” he said,
with a little wave of the hand, introducing himself.
“You would like to know my name,” said Harry.
The Italian-Englishman replied, not with any expression of offence, but
with a smiling bow.
“My name is——” he made a pause. He looked at the interested
countenance beside him, a sense of the ludicrous mingling with his
suspicious distrust of all strangers and foreigners. What did it matter what
he said to a little impostor like this? “Oliver,” he added, with a laugh. He
almost thought the little fellow, though not an Englishman, must see the
incongruity, the absurdity, of associating the name of Oliver with such a
person as Harry Joscelyn. It suddenly became a practical joke to him, a
masquerade which everyone must see through.
“O—— livr,” said little Thompson, with a long emphasis upon the first
letter, and a hurried slur over the rest; “that right? alright! Mister O—lvr.”
“Not Mister,” said Harry, growing benevolent as he felt a little
amusement steal over him, and he tried to give his new acquaintance the
nuance of sound which divides the Mr. of English use and wont from the
two distinct syllables of which Paolo was so fond. They grew friends over
this attempt at unity of pronunciation, or rather Harry permitted himself to
grow friendly, and to ask himself what harm this little foreigner could do
him—a little hop o’ my thumb, whom he could lift in one hand. As he
laughed over his new friend’s attempt to catch the difference of sound, his
friendly feeling increased. He felt his superiority more and more, and in that
superiority his suspicions melted away. As for little Paolo he took
everything amiably. He had no objection to be laughed at.
“You mean not bad,” he said, “I know; you mean not to make angry.
Laugh, it is a way of us English. My father was an Englishman. I never
know him; he was died before I am born; but I too am an English by origin.
It is for that I have my place. I am Interpreter. I put what you say in Italian.
I put what one would say to you in English. Thus I please to both,” said the
little man with lively satisfaction; and he laughed when Harry laughed with
genuine good faith. Perhaps it was the reaction from his past despondency
which made Harry laugh so much, perhaps the little bravado of a stranger
feeling himself gazed at and isolated among a crowd of people alien to him.
He attracted the eyes of all the guests at the table-d’hôte especially of some
Americans who had come in late, and one other Englishman who regarded
him gloomily from the other end of the table, and concluded that his
countryman was having too much to drink, but that it was not his business.
Harry was not taking too much to drink; he was making wry faces at the
sour Nostrali, which was the only wine provided without a special order.
Harry did not understand any wine except Port and Sherry, and he despised
the sour stuff of which he took one big gulp and no more; he did not know
what else to order, and he did not like to mix up Paolo in his affairs so far as
to ask his advice on this point. Paolo for his part was drinking a little of his
wine in a tumblerful of water, not without some alarm lest the eau rougie
should go to his head. He told Harry all his story as they sat together. His
father had been an English clerk, sent out from England to an office in
Leghorn, who had married an Italian girl, and died in the first year of their
marriage. Paolo was very proud of that fine and aristocratic name of
Thompson, of which there was a Lord and many Sirs, he informed Harry
with great but smiling seriousness; his mother, though she had been so
young, would never re-marry herself, though pressed on all sides to do so—
such was her devotion to her youthful husband who was English, and to the
romantic and euphonious name which he had left her. The young man grew
every moment more friendly. Harry’s suspicions all floated away as he
listened to the story, and laughed at the accent and grammar of his new
acquaintance, who laughed too with perfect good-humour. Thompson—he
was a fit associate for an Oliver, Harry said to himself, knowing nothing
about any Oliver save Isaac whose name he had appropriated. After dinner
was over Paolo proposed that they should go for a stroll; and though Harry
had done nothing else but stroll all the afternoon with very small advantage,
yet he was quite willing to begin again with the aid of his friend’s
knowledge. It was less lonely than sitting in the dreadful little room of
which Paolo had ventured to say that it was so comfortable, and exactly
what an Englishman liked. Harry shuddered at the thought; he had never
been used to sit in his bedroom, and he could not but feel it a sort of
humiliation that he had no other room to sit in. His new friend was a
wonderful example of costume to the untrained taste of Harry. He wore
trousers of a large check, but a black evening coat over them, a large shirt-
front, a black ribbon at his neck tied in a bow, and varnished shoes. He was
very well contented with his appearance. When he added an opera-hat to all
this finery, the sensation in his little bosom of thorough self-content was
very warm. Harry could not but laugh at the little exquisite, whose gorgeous
apparel was so unlike anything he had ever seen.
“I don’t know if I dare to walk out in my coloured clothes with such a
swell as you are, Thompson,” he said. Paolo looked down upon himself
delighted. He knew he was well-dressed.
“You are all right,” he said, “an English, that covers all; but when one is
only by origin, more must be done. Komm a-long.” He stretched up his
hand, which he had just clothed in light kid, to Harry’s arm, who had no
gloves, nor any other advantage. The Angelus was sounding from all the
churches as they set out. Harry could not but wonder if there was an
evening sermon, or if it was a series of prayer-meetings which were going
on. He was much surprised that foreigners should have such devout habits.
It surprised him, too, to see how soon it got dark; but as it happened there
was a brilliant moon which soon made the streets as light as day. And as
soon as the sacred hour of sunset, the fatal hour which Italians dread, was
over, the streets filled with a crowd which still more surprised Harry. Before
all the cafés the pavements were crowded—not only men, but women,
seated at the little tables enjoying the freshness of the lovely evening, and
making such a hum and babble of talk as nothing but an unknown tongue
can produce. A language which is familiar to us never sounds so like an
uproar and tumult as one that is unintelligible. Harry’s first thought was that
the people about him were all quarrelling; his second that this chatter was
the riotous and boundless gaiety which he had always heard attributed to
“foreigners;” but the scene amused him, though it was so unintelligible, and
by and by a degree of toleration which years at home could not have
conveyed to him, began to penetrate his mind. Perhaps after all it was only
the different habits of these unknown people, and neither quarrelling nor
riot. Sometimes one would jump up in the midst of a conversation as if
impelled by a sudden outburst of fury, and address his friends, gesticulating
wildly; but after Harry had taken the alarm, and sat ready to strike in if any
harm happened, he noticed that the friends of the violent person took it
quite calmly, turning upon him looks which were full of smiling placidity,
and evidently fearing nothing. In the same way when two men were
threading their way along the street together, one would suddenly drop the
other’s arm, and standing still, discourse with every mark of excitement for
a minute, then resume his friend’s arm and go on again as if there had been
no interruption. An Englishman would have knocked down his adversary
with much less demonstration. Harry felt himself obliged to pause too, and
give an eye to these personages; and when he also sat down with his
companion at one of the little tables, his attention to Paolo’s doubtful
English was constantly interrupted by the same supposed need of
watchfulness in case the party next to them should come to blows. But all
the other people took it quite quietly, to Harry’s great surprise.
“Why do these beggars jump up in that way and look as if they were
going to knock some other fellow down?” Harry said at last.
“Beggares?” said Paolo, looking round hastily; and then, for he was a
young man anxious to improve himself and quick of apprehension, he
jumped at the Englishman’s meaning. “Ah! that is English for questi
Signori, these gentlemen? beggares! capisco, capisco!” said Paolo, clapping
his hands as at an excellent joke; “they do nothing but make a little
conversation, what you call talk,—these beggares;” and he burst forth once
more into a genial peal.
Harry was half pleased to have achieved such a facile success, and half
alarmed lest perhaps Paolo might be laughing at him. He said with a
suppressed growl, “Conversation! do you call that conversation? I thought
they were going to fly at each other’s throats.”
“No, no, no—never fly at each other’s throats; they have too much
education,” said Paolo; “it is the Italian animation, that is all. An English is
what you call quiet. He talks down here, not out of his mout,” and Paolo
beat himself upon the breast, and pointed to about the spot out of which
Harry’s deep bass proceeded. Harry was by no means pleased with this
familiarity, but he reflected that the little man was his only friend among all
these strangers, and subdued his displeasure. He did not know very well
what to do with the pink syrup that was furnished him to drink: that, and the
sour wine, and the black coffee, were all alike out of Harry’s way. Oh, that
he could have had but one mighty draught of English beer to clear all these
cobwebs out of his throat! But this was an indulgence, like so many others,
to be hoped for no more.
After Paolo had sipped the rosolio which Harry contemplated with such
a mingling of alarm and disgust, they got up and continued their walk. By-
and-bye, in the full moonlight, they strolled towards the port, and walked
about on the quays, among the shipping, which threw up its black lines of
masts, and dark lace of cordage against the silvery light of which the sky
was full. Harry was interested about all this, much more than about
churches or pictures. And he threaded his way among the ropes, and piles of
barrels and cases with which the quays were encumbered, with a stir of
curiosity and hope. Should he find his life and work within the circle which
surrounded these instruments of wealth? He paid but little attention to the
talk of his companion as they went along. He seemed to see once more the
new career before him which he had been doubting an hour or two before. It
was not a very magnificent prospect: yet work that suited him might surely
be found when there were goods to be exported, and counting houses to
look after these goods. He did not know what might become of him in this
strange place, but whatever his fortune might be it was all he could look
forward to, and his mind seemed to take a new start from the appearance
before him of a possibility, a strain of existence which he understood. He
forgot, as he listened to Paolo’s chatter going on by his side—which filled
him with a vague, superficial sense of superiority—all about the new
language to be learned, and the difficulties which had almost overwhelmed
him in the afternoon. Thus he went on, allowing his companion to talk, and
thinking his own thoughts, till they emerged from the immediate regions of
the basins and docks and came back to the streets. They were crossing one
which was very dimly lighted, and which Paolo informed him led into the
better quarter of the town, when they came in sight, or, rather in hearing, of
a party of sailors in a noisy state of exhilaration. What could they have been
drinking, Harry wondered, thinking of the sour wine and the rosolio, to
make them so convivial? They were singing rude choruses, and making
night hideous with jokes and loud laughter, bearing a wonderful family
resemblance to noises of the same kind which Harry had heard near the port
of Liverpool—when there suddenly crossed the moonlit-road, between the
revellers and the two orderly passengers, a couple of female figures moving
rapidly, figures very easily identified as those of an elder and younger
woman—a sedate and ample personage, with a girl clinging to her. Two of
the sailors, with a holloa of satisfaction, started forward in pursuit. They
overtook the women when they were close to Harry and his companion, and
one of them seized the girl by the arm. She gave a frightened cry, and the
other woman, throwing her arm round her, pushed the men away, pouring
forth a volley of rapid Italian, of which Harry of course did not understand a
word. He made a stride forward to the fray. Paolo, on his side, who was
small and not valorous, did his best to hold him back.
“It is not our business,” he said, with a certain faltering in his voice.
“Tell them to let go the girl,” said Harry, with brief determination.
“It is not our business,” said the alarmed interpreter.
“Tell them they had better let go that girl,” repeated the young
Englishman.
Then little Paolo stood forth, with a courage which was not his own, and
addressed the sailors. He took off his hat with the utmost politeness and
remonstrated. Harry, beginning, by dint of hearing them repeated, to
distinguish the words, at last understood that “Questo Signor” must mean
himself; but the sailors treated the remonstrance with contempt. The other
one took hold of the girl by the other arm, while she screamed, and her
companion raved and scolded at them, pushing and struggling with all her
might. Harry stepped forward into the moonlight. He lifted up his clenched
fist and his big bass voice. “Let go that girl,” he shouted in good English,
with a voice that roused all the echoes. The men did not know a word he
said; but they understood him, which was more to the purpose. They let go
their hold in a minute, and stood staring at the intruder as sheepishly as any
Englishmen could have done, and perhaps also with a touch of shame. Little
Paolo, trembling yet triumphant, kept close to the champion, while he stood
and faced them, ready for whatever might happen. It was not for nothing
that Harry was a Joscelyn. He stood well up to them with a watchful eye
and a ready arm. The women had escaped under cover of this unexpected
interposition from their first assailants, but another pursuer by this time had
got upon their track. “Let’s have a look at your face, my pretty lass,” this
lout said, as he rolled along. Harry’s blood was up in a moment. “Oh, by
Jove!” he cried, as if the sound of his native tongue had been the last
aggravation, “this is too much. I know what to say to you, at least, my fine
fellow,” and he turned upon his countryman like lightning, and promptly
knocked him down. “I am not going to stand any nonsense from you,” he
said.
It was the affair of a moment—no more. The women flew along the
street, disappearing up the nearest opening. Harry strode on after them with
his blood up, but walking with the most dignified tranquillity. He would not
even turn round to see what had happened. “If he thought I was going to
stand him,” he said, as he went along, “that fellow, by Jove! but he was in
the wrong box.” As for little Paolo, between fright and admiration, he was
at his wit’s end. He danced along, now hurrying Harry on, now facing the
other way, walking backwards to keep the other party in sight, and uttering
alarmed entreaties. “Run! run! What if you ’ave kill him?” he cried.
“Vergene Santissima! they are coming. You ’ave done it now, you ’ave done
it, and no one to help. Per Bacco! and he goes as if it were a festa. Run,
Mister, run!”
“I told you not to call me Mister,” said Harry, walking on with perfect
coolness and at his ordinary pace. Paolo was half beside himself. “Perhaps
you have kill a man,” he cried, “and you stop to set right my English—at
such a moment——”
 “Pooh!” said Harry; he would not have quickened his steps for a fortune.
“Don’t you know the beggar is an Englishman? A broken head won’t hurt
him. Let’s keep the women in sight, they might get into more trouble.”
Paolo followed him, trembling and hurried as they got further off; but the
noisy sailors were busy about their fallen comrade, and made no attempt to
follow. They were too much startled by the summary proceedings of the
stranger, and kept back by a certain sense of justice which seldom fails in
such an affray. The little Italian kept close to Harry like a dog, rushing
about him, now a little in advance, now a little behind. “He ’ave pick
himself up,” he said, looking back. “Dio! how the English understand each
other! He is not kill.”
“Killed!” cried Harry, contemptuously. “It takes more than that to kill an
Englishman, even a beast like that fellow. You may palaver with your own
kind, but I know what to do with mine. Come along, Thompson. Where
have those women gone?”
Here Paolo caught him by the arm, dragging him into the narrow street
by which the flying figures had disappeared. One side of it was in almost
perfect darkness, while the other was white and brilliant in the moonlight.
“You like to know who it was,” he said. “Per Bacco! I know.”
“It does not matter to me who it was,” said Harry, “so long as they are
safe, that is all I care for. Women have no business to be out so late at
night.”
At this Paolo nodded his head a great many times in assent. “But that is
English too,” he said. “How you are strange! You let a young lady go in the
street, and you kill a man, and never think more of it! and the man when he
is kill, get up and walk away instead of to avenge himself! You are strange,
very strange. I understand you very well, for I am an English too.”
After this somewhat startling incident, however, they did not linger long
on their way. It had stirred the blood in Harry’s veins and given him the
new start he wanted. There is nothing like a new incident for familiarising
the mind with any great change in this life. Hitherto he had thought of
nothing but his own transmogrification. Now he had something else to think
of. He got back to his inn unmolested and uninterrupted, and he found his
dreary little room not so dreary when it became a shelter for his fatigue, and
a refuge in which to think over the strange excitement of this first new day.
 CHAPTER III.

SETTING OUT IN LIFE.

N EXT morning Harry was woke by the appearance of his little friend at
his bedside. For a moment it was all fantastic to him like a dream, the
narrow slip of room with its tall walls, and straight windows, and the
strange little figure by his bedside. “Hallo,” he said, “who are you, and what
do you want?” opening his sleepy eyes, and springing up in bed. Paolo
retreated with a little alarm.
“I go to the bureau,” he said, “but before I go I am here to say good
morning. What will you do without me?” the little man added with great
simplicity. “Get lost, get into what you call skrape. Antonio, he speak a
little. I come to advise that you take him with you. It will be only five lire,
not very moche for an English.”
“I wish you could remember,” said Harry pettishly, “to say an
Englishman. An English is no sense: you never hear me say that.”
“Alright,” said Paolo good-humouredly. “I will remember; but it will be
better to take Antonio; he shows you everything, all the palaces and streets,
and you give him cinque lire—five,” holding up his fingers spread out to
show the sum, and counting them with his other hand, “and you talk, he tell
you things in Italian, you make a lesson out of him,” he added with a grin,
showing all his white teeth.
It was a sensible suggestion, but Harry was perverse. “That is all very
well,” he said, “but I don’t care about seeing your palaces; what I want is to
get something to do. Ain’t there a Times, or something with advertisements?
where a fellow could see what’s wanted?”
Paolo looked at him with a doubtful air, and his head on one side like a
questioning sparrow. He was so small and so spare, and Harry so big,
stretched out in the small bed which could not contain him, that the simile
held in all points. It appeared unnecessary that he should do more than put
out his hand to make an end altogether of his adviser, and there seemed a
consciousness of this in the little man himself, who, recollecting last night,
hopped a little farther off every time that Harry advanced leaning on his
elbow, and projecting himself out of bed.
“You bring letters, you are recommended?” he said. “No?” A cloud came
over Paolo’s face; then he brightened again. “You come with me,” he said.
“The Consul, that is the prince of the English—man. You come wid me, and
I will recommend you. I will introduce you. He have much confidence,
what you call trost, in me.”
“But you don’t know anything about me,” said Harry.
Paolo looked at him with an effusion of admiration and faith, “Siamo
amici,” he said, laying his hand upon his heart with a sentiment and air
which to the cynical Englishman were nothing less than theatrical. But
Harry did not understand what the words meant.
“That is all very well,” he said again, supposing that this was a mere
compliment without meaning. “But what could you say about me? nothing!
You don’t know me any more than the Consul does—or anybody here.”
“Between friends,” said Paolo, “there is not the need of explanation. I
understand you, Mister. Are you a Christian or a Protestant,” he added
quickly, “have you a name of baptism, perhaps?” Paolo did not want to hurt
the feelings of his new friend in case he was not provided with this article.
But Harry’s pride was wounded to the quick.
“A Christian,” he cried, “or a Protestant? I am both a Protestant and a
Christian! I never heard such horrible intolerance in all my life. It is you
who are not Christians, you papists praying to idols—worshipping saints,
and old bones, and all sort of nonsense.” Harry was so much in earnest that
his face grew crimson, and Paolo retreated yet another step.
“You heat yourself; but it is not needed,” he said, waving his hand with
deprecating grace. “Me, I am above prejudices. Here one calls one’s self
Giovanni or Giacomo, or Paolo, as with me; and when the person is
respectable of years, Ser Giovanni or Ser Giacomo; but if one has not a
name of baptism, it is the same, that make no difference——”
“Do you take me for a heathen that never was christened?” cried Harry.
“My name is——” here he stopped and laughed, but grew redder, with a
dusky colour; but “in for penny in for a pound,” as he had already remarked
to himself—“my name is Isaac—Isaac Oliver, as I told you,” he said.
“Bene, bene!” said Paolo. “It is enough, I will say to the consul: here is
Mister Isaac, who is my friend. He is English—man; yes, I recollect—man;