When the stranger was fairly settled down in the humble dwelling of Mrs. Sparks, he seemed well pleased with his quarters.
'He've been brought up hard, granny,' said John; 'that's how he's so contented.'
'I don't believe it, John; he's the rale gentleman, only he've got the sense to come down to his means.'
At this juncture their lodger appeared, and cut short the conference. He has been partially described. To finish the portrait, the reader must add to his penetrating grey eyes a mouth indicating great decision of character, a head finely formed, with hair changing to grey. In the vigour of his expression, carriage, and manner, you would read his age to be thirty; but the worn look of his cheek, his furrowed brow, and his changing hair put many years on him: he might be forty or forty-five. Leaning over the garden gate with a paper in his hand, he nodded pleasantly to John, who was gardening, while his grandmother kept watch lest he should slip from his work.
'This Parker's Due that you told me of,' he said, 'how shall I find it by walking?'
John and his granny, having almost quarrelled about the nearest way, gave him a direction at last, as plain as a Chinese puzzle.
'Bring me a jug of milk, Mrs. Sparks, and some of your good brown bread; I see I have a long walk before me, and must be fortified.' Wouldn't he have some bacon, or wait for her to make a pan pudding with two or three eggs? No, he would not; he drank the milk, and putting the bread in his knapsack, took his iron-ended staff, or spud, and was opening the gate when two young ladies rode up, and, dismounting, the younger, who was exceedingly handsome, threw the bridle with an air of condescension into his hands. The elder, less beautiful, but pleasant-looking, hesitated to follow her example, and regarded him inquiringly.
Biddy Sparks came out, calling, 'John, John;' but John, reckoning on her having a longer talk with her lodger, and being tired of digging, had escaped to the Brimble Arms.
'Oh, ladies, I'm never so sorry—please, sir—I beg a hundred pardons, miss—couldn't I hold the horses, sir?—where can John be gone? You seen him here this minute, sir?'
Biddy knew well where he was gone, but did not hint at it, for fear of injuring his character before the ladies. The stranger, meantime, quietly tethered the horses securely to the strong fence, and, raising his cap to the young ladies, said to Biddy, 'I will find your grandson, and send him; they will stand quite safely,' looking at the horses, and then turned towards the inn, where he expected to see him.
Miss Brimble watched him out of sight; but her sister Flora scarcely allowed him to be beyond hearing before she asked who he was, adding, 'I thought it was one of the farm people.'
'He's my lodger, miss, and quite a gentleman, for all he's put up here,' said Biddy. 'Please walk in, ladies. The chickens are all alive, Miss Flora—I'm proud to say I haven't lost one; you'll please to come and look at them; and belike Miss Brimble will look at the beautiful pictures as Mr. Jobson have put up in the parlour.'
'Beautiful indeed!' said Miss Brimble, standing before a rough water-colour drawing of an extensive country scene. 'Oh, Flora, look! how exceedingly clever!' she exclaimed, and pointed out the merits of distance, colour, etc. Flora had no doubt it was all true, but did not examine it with much interest. While Miss Brimble stood before it in silent admiration, she went with Biddy to visit her chickens, plying her with innumerable questions about her lodger.
'Jobson—what a name! poor old man! I daresay he's some map-maker, or surveyor, or that kind of thing. And so he plays the flute? Why, how entertaining he must be! And you don't know where he came from, nor where he is going, nor what he wants here, nor how long he is going to stay? Well, if he had but a better name, he would be delightfully mysterious; but Jobson—and Matthew Jobson, too—there's no harmonizing that with mystery.'
Miss Brimble had well surveyed, not only the drawing described but several others,—some unintelligible to a common eye, from their roughness,—and seemed disinclined to leave them, when Flora returned from her visit to her pet chickens. As they rode through the long narrow lane that formed with its overhanging boughs an avenue almost private to the Hall, Flora upbraided her sister with not having visited her pets—' the sweetest little creatures in the world,' she said.
'Who can this person be?' said Miss Brimble, musingly, and not noticing her sister's reproaches.
'Oh, some poor old broken-down artist—or—or—but what does it signify? I do believe, Charity, you are more interested in him than in my little darlings.'
'I wish,' said Miss Brimble, 'I had asked more questions of Biddy about him.'
'Don't be unhappy,' said Flora; 'I asked every conceivable question while you were looking at those things on the wall. His name is Matthew Jobson; he gets up at some unearthly hour—four or five—after sleeping on a mat on the floor, miserable man, with his window open; when the milk comes in, he drinks one long draught, and eats brown bread, and that's his breakfast; then he shuts himself up in the parlour, and makes those smudges and scratches—I should call them—but of course you know best; then he starts off with hard-boiled eggs and brown bread, and walks no one knows where, and doesn't return till evening, and finishes the day with a solo on the flute, and some more bread and milk. Well, stop—I haven't done; he is undoubtedly very poor, but very honest, for he pays his reckoning every evening, which makes Biddy afraid he won't stay very long. He gives John the best advice—he knows everything, and has been everywhere—there!'
'I wonder if he would give drawing-lessons,' said Charity.
'Not to me,' said Flora; 'not even to be able to do those wonderful things that you admire so would I take lessons of such a sharp-looking old man.'
'Old!' said Miss Brimble; 'he's not old; I was quite struck with his appearance and manner; I believe he's a gentleman in reduced circumstances.'
'Gentleman Jobson,' said Flora.
'As for that, I think Jobson quite as good a name as Brimble.'
'I admit it—how could it be worse? but please to remember we are not bona fide Brimbles, as papa says; woe worth the day that turned us out of honourable "De la Marks" into people so ignoble!'
The ride ended, and the story of the stranger was soon told to the family. Squire Brimble, who was the essence of indulgent fathers, promised to see him, and ascertain if Charity's wish could be accomplished.
Accordingly, the next morning he set off to Stoney Gates to fulfil his promise. He found Mrs. Sparks at her wheel before the door, and the stranger leaning against the large walnut tree, sketching her. Mr. Brimble advanced with an air of easy kindness. 'Mr. Jobson, I believe.' The stranger, with a half-suppressed smile, returned his bow. 'My name is Brimble. I live at yon old red house. My daughters were here yesterday, and had the pleasure of seeing a drawing of yours which they admired exceedingly.' Again the stranger bowed. 'May I have the pleasure of seeing it?'
'By all means, if you will find it a pleasure;' and they entered the house together. Mr. Brimble walked to the largest drawing. He had no doubt Charity was right, and admired it in nearly the same terms in which she had praised it to him; but he wondered whether Flora might not be right—smudge and scratch.
'There's something very extraordinary in genius,' he said. 'It seems to make people forget the ordinary things of life. You, for instance, are so interested in your art, that I daresay you are insensible to half that you are exposed to in this queer place.'
'Queer place!' said the stranger; 'I wish genius may never fare worse. What can a man enjoy more than ease and sumptuous abundance?' and he seated himself carelessly on his portmanteau, while he pushed the only chair towards Mr. Brimble.
The squire answered with a chuckle. Biddy Sparks' lodger revelling in ease and sumptuous abundance! The stranger smiled at his merriment, and said, 'If you had passed through what some travellers have,—I speak not of myself,—you would call this accommodation fit for a prince.'
The tone and manner which accompanied these words convinced Mr. Brimble that the person before him was no starved-out son of genius, that fed ill from an empty pocket; and as the conversation continued he became more and more impressed with the feeling that he was a gentleman who wanted no help, and, moreover, a man of highly gifted and cultivated mind. A thorough lover of ease in mind and body, Mr. Brimble enjoyed nothing more than amusement without the cost of exertion; he was quite elated at the idea of having found a pleasant companion in so near a neighbour, whose company could be enjoyed without the bondage of ceremony. On the other hand, the stranger, keen in the perception of character, had at a glance read that of his visitor; kindness and candour were its leading features: the effect was mutual satisfaction.
At last, being satisfied that the stranger was travelling merely from amusement, and lived as he did from preference, the squire said, with a frank smile, as he proffered his snuff-box, 'Well, now for the truth. I came here fancying that you were a poor genius, at your wits' end for money, and I intended asking you to give lessons to my daughter; but, as I happen to be wrong in everything but the genius, instead of that come and dine with us to-day. We shall be alone, I believe; but even then we may hope to be as entertaining as Sparks and his granny.'
The stranger smiled, but shook his head. He glanced at his dress. 'I have no means of making a toilet here,' he said, 'and couldn't appear thus before ladies.'
'Nonsense!' said Mr. Brimble; 'you are fit for court. Mrs. Brimble and my children are quite indifferent to such matters; you are an idle man, and you've no excuse. Walk down with me now, and make a long day of it.' The stranger, still declaring that he could not then accept his hospitality, added that he would gladly walk with him, and they left the house together.
'This avenue, you see,' said the squire, 'amounts to a private road. None but our own people intrude on it; so that my daughters can ride or walk to their favourite haunts in the village and around it, without any fear of molestation, without the tediousness of an attendant. We are all for liberty; it is as much our delight as if we had been born birds of the air. Anything like etiquette—when it is constraint—is our torment. Now you see that little pathway that............