The Virginians by William Makepeace Thackeray (top books to read txt) 📕

fine bow from Mr. Batts's hat, scarcely touched his own with his forefinger. The tennis Captain walked away looking somewhat disconcerted, Harry remaining behind to talk with his friend of Westerham. Mr. Wolfe walked by him for a while, very erect, silent, and cold.

“I have not seen you these many days,” says Harry.

“You have had other companions,” remarks Mr. Wolfe, curtly.

“But I had rather be with you than any of them,” cries the young man.

“Indeed I might be better company for you than some of them,” says the other.

“Is it Captain Batts you mean?” asked Harry.

“He is no favourite of mine, I own; he bore a rascally reputation when he was in the army, and I doubt has not mended it since he was turned out. You certainly might find a better friend than Captain Batts. Pardon the freedom which I take in saying so,” says Mr. Wolfe, grimly.

“Friend! he is no friend: he only teaches me to play tennis: he is hand-in-glove with my lord, and all the people of fashion here who play.”

“I am not a man of fashion,” says Mr. Wolfe.

“My dear Colonel, what is the matter? Have I angered you in any way? You speak almost as if I had, and I am not conscious of having done anything to forfeit your regard,” said Mr. Warrington.

“I will be free with you, Mr. Warrington,” said the Colonel, gravely, “and tell you with frankness that I don't like some of your friends!”

“Why, sure, they are men of the first rank and fashion in England,” cries Harry, not choosing to be offended with his companion's bluntness.

“Exactly, they are men of too high rank and too great fashion for a hard-working poor soldier like me; and if you continue to live with such, believe me, you will find numbers of us humdrum people can't afford to keep such company. I am here, Mr. Warrington, paying my addresses to an honourable lady. I met you yesterday openly walking with a French ballet-dancer, and you took off your hat. I must frankly tell you, that I had rather you would not take off your hat when you go out in such company.”

“Sir,” said Mr. Warrington, growing very red, “do you mean that I am to forgo the honour of Colonel Wolfe's acquaintance altogether?”

“I certainly shall request you to do so when you are in company with that person,” said Colonel Wolfe, angrily; but he used a word not to be written at present, though Shakespeare puts it in the mouth of Othello.

“Great heavens! what a shame it is to speak so of any woman!” cries Mr. Warrington. “How dare any man say that that poor creature is not honest?”

“You ought to know best, sir,” says the other, looking at Harry with some surprise, “or the world belies you very much.”

“What ought I to know best? I see a poor little French dancer who is come hither with her mother, and is ordered by the doctors to drink the waters. I know that a person of my rank in life does not ordinarily keep company with people of hers; but really, Colonel Wolfe, are you so squeamish? Have I not heard you say that you did not value birth, and that all honest people ought to be equal? Why should I not give this little unprotected woman my arm? there are scarce half a dozen people here who can speak a word of her language. I can talk a little French, and she is welcome to it; and if Colonel Wolfe does not choose to touch his hat to me, when I am walking with her, by George he may leave it alone,” cried Harry, flushing up.

“You don't mean to say,” says Mr. Wolfe, eyeing him, “that you don't know the woman's character?”

“Of course, sir, she is a dancer, and, I suppose, no better or worse than her neighbours. But I mean to say that, had she been a duchess, or your grandmother, I couldn't have respected her more.”

“You don't mean to say that you did not win her at dice, from Lord March?”

“At what?”

“At dice, from Lord March. Everybody knows the story. Not a person at the Wells is ignorant of it. I heard it but now, in the company of that good old Mr. Richardson, and the ladies were saying that you would be a character for a colonial Lovelace.”

“What on earth else have they said about me?” asked Harry Warrington; and such stories as he knew the Colonel told. The most alarming accounts of his own wickedness and profligacy were laid before him. He was a corrupter of virtue, an habitual drunkard and gamester, a notorious blasphemer and freethinker, a fitting companion for my Lord March, finally, and the company into whose society he had fallen. “I tell you these things,” said Mr. Wolfe, “because it is fair that you should know what is said of you, and because I do heartily believe, from your manner of meeting the last charge brought against you, that you are innocent of most of the other counts. I feel, Mr. Warrington, that I, for one, have been doing you a wrong; and sincerely ask you to pardon me.”

Of course, Harry was eager to accept his friend's apology, and they shook hands with sincere cordiality this time. In respect of most of the charges brought against him, Harry rebutted them easily enough: as for the play, he owned to it. He thought that a gentleman should not refuse a fair challenge from other gentlemen, if his means allowed him: and he never would play beyond his means. After winning considerably at first, he could afford to play large stakes, for he was playing with other people's money. Play, he thought, was fair,—it certainly was pleasant. Why, did not all England, except the Methodists, play? Had he not seen the best company at the Wells over the cards—his aunt amongst them?

Mr. Wolfe made no immediate comment upon Harry's opinion as to the persons who formed the best company at the Wells, but he frankly talked with the young man, whose own frankness had won him, and warned him that the life he was leading might be the pleasantest, but surely was not the most profitable of lives. “It can't be, sir,” said the Colonel, “that a man is to pass his days at horse-racing and tennis, and his nights carousing or at cards. Sure, every man was made to do some work: and a gentleman, if he has none, must make some. Do you know the laws of your country, Mr. Warrington? Being a great proprietor, you will doubtless one day be a magistrate at home. Have you travelled over the country, and made yourself acquainted with its trades and manufactures? These are fit things for a gentleman to study, and may occupy him as well as a cock-fight or a cricket-match. Do you know anything of our profession? That, at least, you will allow, is a noble one; and, believe me, there is plenty in it to learn, and suited, I should think, to you. I speak of it rather than of books and the learned professions, because, as far as I can judge, your genius does not lie that way. But honour is the aim of life,” cried Mr. Wolfe, “and every man can serve his country one way or the other. Be sure, sir, that idle bread is the most dangerous of all that is eaten; that