The Broad Highway | Page 4

antipathy to termagants, more especially tall ones."
"Termagant!" cried Sir Richard. "Why, she's the handsomest woman in London, boy. She's none of your milk-and-watery, meek-mouthed misses--curse me, no! She's all fire and blood and high mettle--a woman, sir glorious--divine--damme, sir, a black-browed goddess--a positive plum!"
"Sir Richard," said I, "should I ever contemplate marriage, which is most improbable, my wife must be sweet and shy, gentle-eyed and soft of voice, instead of your bold, strong-armed, horse-galloping creature; above all, she must be sweet and clinging--"
"Sweet and sticky, oh, the devil! Hark to the boy, Grainger," cried Sir Richard, "hark to him--and one glance of the glorious Sefton's bright eyes--one glance only, Grainger, and he'd be at her feet--on his knees--on his confounded knees, sir!"
"The question is, how do you propose to maintain yourself in the future?" said Mr. Grainger at this point; "life under your altered fortunes must prove necessarily hard, Mr. Peter."
"And yet, sir," I answered, "a fortune with a wife tagged on to it must prove a very mixed blessing after all; and then again, there may be a certain amount of satisfaction in stepping into a dead man's shoes, but I, very foolishly, perhaps, have a hankering for shoes of my own. Surely there must be some position in life that I am competent to fill, some position that would maintain me honorably and well; I flatter myself that my years at Oxford were not altogether barren of result--"
"By no means," put in Sir Richard; "you won the High Jump, I believe?"
"Sir, I did," said I; "also 'Throwing the Hammer.'"
"And spent two thousand pounds per annum?" said Sir Richard.
"Sir, I did, but between whiles managed to do fairly well in the Tripos, to finish a new and original translation of Quintilian, another of Petronius Arbiter and also a literal rendering into the English of the Memoirs of the Sieur de Brantome."
"For none of which you have hitherto found a publisher?" inquired Mr. Grainger.
"Not as yet," said I, "but I have great hopes of my Brantome, as you are probably aware this is the first time he has ever been translated into the English."
"Hum!" said Sir Richard, "ha!--and in the meantime what do you intend to do?"
"On that head I have as yet come to no definite conclusion, sir," I answered.
"I have been wondering," began Mr. Grainger, somewhat diffidently, "if you would care to accept a position in my office. To be sure the remuneration would be small at first and quite insignificant in comparison to the income you have been in the receipt of."
"But it would have been money earned," said I, "which is infinitely preferable to that for which we never turn a hand--at least, I think so."
"Then you accept?"
"No, sir," said I, "though I am grateful to you, and thank you most sincerely for your offer, yet I have never felt the least inclination to the practice of law; where there is no interest one's work must necessarily suffer, and I have no desire that your business should be injured by any carelessness of mine."
"What do you think of a private tutorship?"
"It would suit me above all things were it not for the fact that the genus 'Boy' is the most aggravating of all animals, and that I am conscious of a certain shortness of temper at times, which might result in pain to my pupil, loss of dignity to myself, and general unpleasantness to all concerned--otherwise a private tutorship would suit most admirably."
Here Sir Richard took another pinch of snuff and sat frowning up at the ceiling, while Mr. Grainger began tying up that document which had so altered my prospects. As for me, I crossed to the window and stood staring out at the evening. Everywhere were trees tinted by the rosy glow of sunset, trees that stirred sleepily in the gentle wind, and far away I could see that famous highway, built and paved for the march of Roman Legions, winding away to where it vanished over distant Shooter's Hill.
"And pray," said Sir Richard, still frowning at the ceiling, "what do you propose to do with yourself?"
Now, as I looked out upon this fair evening, I became, of a sudden, possessed of an overmastering desire, a great longing for field and meadow and hedgerow, for wood and coppice and shady stream, for sequestered inns and wide, wind-swept heaths, and ever the broad highway in front. Thus I answered Sir Richard's question unhesitatingly, and without turning from the window:
"I shall go, sir, on a walking tour through Kent and Surrey into Devonshire, and thence probably to Cornwall."
"And with a miserable ten guineas in your pocket? Preposterous --absurd!" retorted Sir Richard.
"On the contrary, sir," said I, "the more I ponder the project, the more enamored of it I become."
"And when your money is all gone--how then?"
"I