CHAPTER IX.
I SEE THE RING OF THE PERSIAN MAGICIAN.
'That's a devilish fine girl,' said Mark Wylder.
He was sitting at this moment on the billiard table, with his coat offand his cue in his hand, and had lighted a cigar. He and I had just had agame, and were tired of it.
'Who?' I asked. He was looking on me from the corners of his eyes, andsmiling in a sly, rakish way, that no man likes in another.
'Radie Lake--she's a splendid girl, by Jove! Don't you think so? and sheliked me once devilish well, I can tell you. She was thin then, but shehas plumped out a bit, and improved every way.'
Whatever else he was, Mark was certainly no beauty;--a little short hewas, and rather square--one shoulder a thought higher than the other--anda slight, energetic hitch in it when he walked. His features in profilehad something of a Grecian character, but his face was too broad--verybrown, rather a bloodless brown--and he had a pair of great, dense,vulgar, black whiskers. He was very vain of his teeth--his only reallygood point--for his eyes were a small cunning, gray pair; and this,perhaps, was the reason why he had contracted his habit of laughing andgrinning a good deal more than the fun of the dialogue always warranted.
This sea-monster smoked here as unceremoniously as he would have done in'Rees's Divan,' and I only wonder he did not call for brandy-and-water.He had either grown coarser a great deal, or I more decent, during ourseparation. He talked of his _fiancee_ as he might of an opera-girlalmost, and was now discussing Miss Lake in the same style.
'Yes, she is--she's very well; but hang it, Wylder, you're a married mannow, and must give up talking that way. People won't like it, you know;they'll take it to mean more than it does, and you oughtn't. Let us haveanother game.'
'By-and-by; what do you think of Larkin?' asked Wylder, with a sly glancefrom the corners of his eyes. 'I think he prays rather more than is goodfor his clients; mind I spell it with an 'a,' not with an 'e;' but hangit, for an attorney, you know, and such a sharp chap, it does seem to merather a--a joke, eh?'
'He bears a good character among the townspeople, doesn't he? And I don'tsee that it can do him any harm, remembering that he has a soul to besaved.'
'Or the other thing, eh?' laughed Wylder. 'But I think he comes it alittle too strong--two sermons last Sunday, and a prayer-meeting at nineo'clock?'
'Well, it won't do him any harm,' I repeated.
'Harm! O, let Jos. Larkin alone for that. It gets him all the religiousbusiness of the county; and there are nice pickings among the charities,and endowments, and purchases of building sites, and trust deeds; I daresay it brings him in two or three hundred a year, eh?' And Wylder laughedagain. 'It has broken up his hard, proud heart,' he says; 'but it lefthim a devilish hard head, I told him, and I think it sharpens his wits.'
'I rather think you'll find him a useful man; and to be so in his line ofbusiness he must have his wits about him, I can tell you.'
'He amused me devilishly,' said Wylder, 'with a sort of exhortation hetreated me to; he's a delightfully impudent chap, and gave me tounderstand I was a limb of the Devil, and he a saint. I told him I wasbetter than he, in my humble opinion, and so I am, by chalks. I know verywell I'm a miserable sinner, but there's mercy above, and I don't hide myfaults. I don't set up for a light or a saint; I'm just what thePrayer-book says--neither more nor less--a miserable sinner. There's onlyone good thing I can safely say for myself--I am no Pharisee; that's all;I air no religious prig, puffing myself, and trusting to forms, makinglong prayers in the market-place' (Mark's quotations were paraphrastic),'and thinking of nothing but the uppermost seats in the synagogue, andbroad borders, and the praise of men--hang them, I hate those fellows.'
So Mark, like other men we meet with, was proud of being a Publican; andhis prayer was--'I thank Thee that I am not as other men are, spirituallyproud, formalists, hypocrites, or even as this Pharisee.'
'Do you wish another game?' I asked.
'Just now,' said Wylder, emitting first a thin stream of smoke, andwatching its ascent. 'Dorcas is the belle of the county; and she likesme, though she's odd, and don't show it the way other girls would. But afellow knows pretty well when a girl likes him, and you know the marriageis a sensible sort of thing, and I'm determined, of course, to carry itthrough; but, hang it, a fellow can't help thinking sometimes there areother things besides money, and Dorcas is not my style. Rachel's morethat way; she's a _tremendious_ fine girl, by Jove! and a spirited minx,too; and I think,' he added, with an oath, having first taken two puffsat his cigar, 'if I had seen her first, I'd have thought twice before I'dhave got myself into this business.'
I only smiled and shook my head. I did not believe a word of it. Yet,perhaps, I was wrong. He knew very well how to take care of his money; infact, compared with other young fellows, he was a bit of a screw. But hecould do a handsome and generous thing for himself. His selfishness wouldexpand nobly, and rise above his prudential considerations, and drownthem sometimes; and he was the sort of person, who, if the fancy werestrong enough, might marry in haste, and repent--and make his wife, too,repent--at leisure.
'What do you laugh at, Charlie?' said Wylder, grinning himself.
'At your confounded grumbling, Mark. The luckiest dog in England! Willnothing content you?'
'Why, I grumble very little, I think, considering how well off I am,'rejoined he, with a laugh.
'Grumble! If you had a particle of gratitude, you'd build a temple toFortune--you're pagan enough for it, Mark.'
'Fortune has nothing to do with it,' says Mark, laughing again.
'Well, certainly, neither had you.'
'It was all the Devil. I'm not joking, Charlie, upon my word, though I'mlaughing.' (Mark swore now and then, but I take leave to soften hisoaths). 'It was the Persian Magician.'
'Come, Mark, say what you mean.'
'I mean what I say. When we were in the Persian Gulf, near six years ago,I was in command of the ship. The captain, you see, was below, with ahurt in his leg. We had very rough weather--a gale for two days and anight almost--and a heavy swell after. In the night time we picked upthree poor devils in an open boat--. One was a Persian merchant, with agrand beard. We called him the magician, he was so like the pictures ofAladdin's uncle.'
'Why _he_ was an African,' I interposed, my sense of accuracy offended.
'I don't care a curse what he was,' rejoined Mark; 'he was exactly likethe picture in the story-books. And as we were lying off--I forget thecursed name of it--he begged me to put him ashore. He could not speak aword of English, but one of the fellows with him interpreted, and theywere all anxious to get ashore. Poor devils, they had a notion, Ibelieve, we were going to sell them for slaves, and he made me a presentof a ring, and told me a long yarn about it. It was a talisman, it seems,and no one who wore it could ever be lost. So I took it for a keepsake;here it is,' and he extended his stumpy, brown little finger, and showeda thick, coarsely-made ring of gold, with an uncut red stone, of the sizeof a large cherry stone, set in it.
'The stone is a humbug,' said Wylder. 'It's not real. I showed it toPlatten and Foyle. It's some sort of glass. But I would not part with it.I got a fancy into my head that luck would come with it, and maybe thatglass stuff was the thing that had the virtue in it. Now look at thesePersian letters on the inside, for that's the oddest thing about it. Hangit, I can't pull it off--I'm growing as fat as a pig--but they are like aqueer little string of flowers; and I showed it to a clever fellow atMalta--a missionary chap--and he read it off slick, and what do you thinkit means: "I will come up again;"' and he swore a great oath. 'It's astrue as you stand there--_our_ motto. Is not it odd? So I got the"resurgam" you see there engraved round it, and by Jove! it did bring meup. I was near lost, and did rise again. Eh?'
Well, it certainly was a curious accident. Mark had plenty of odd and notunamusing lore. Men who beat about the world in ships usually have; andthese 'yarns,' furnished, after the pattern of Othello's tales ofAnthropophagites and men whose heads do grow b
eneath their shoulders, oneof the many varieties of fascination which he practised on the fair sex.Only in justice to Mark, I must say that he was by no means so shamelessa drawer of the long-bow as the Venetian gentleman and officer.
'When I got this ring, Charlie, three hundred a year and a London lifewould have been Peru and Paradise to poor Pill Garlick, and see what ithas done for me.'
'Aye, and better than Aladdin's, for you need not rub it and bring upthat confounded ugly genii; the slave of your ring works unseen.'
'So he does,' laughed Wylder, in a state of elation, 'and he's not doneworking yet, I can tell you. When the estates are joined in one, they'llbe good eleven thousand a year; and Larkin says, with smart management, Ishall have a rental of thirteen thousand before three years! And that'sonly the beginning, by George! Sir Henry Twisden can't hold hisseat--he's all but broke--as poor as Job, and the gentry hate him, and helives abroad. He has had a hint or two already, and he'll never fight thenext election. D'ye see--hey?'
And Wylder winked and grinned, with a wag of his head.
'M.P.--eh? You did not see that before. I look a-head a bit, eh? and cantake my turn at the wheel--eh?'
And he laughed with cunning exultation.
'Miss Rachel will find I'm not quite such a lubber as she fancies. Buteven then it is only begun. Come, Charlie, you used to like a bet. Whatdo you say? I'll buy you that twenty-five guinea book of pictures--what'sits name?--if you give me three hundred guineas one month after I'm apeer of Parliament. Hey? There's a sporting offer for you. Well! what doyou say--eh?'
'You mean to come out as an orator, then?'
'Orator be diddled! Do you take me for a fool? No, Charlie; but I'll comeout strong as a _voter_--that's the stuff they like--at the right side,of course, and that is the way to manage it. Thirteen thousand ayear--the oldest family in the county--and a steady thick and thinsupporter of the minister. Strong points, eh, Charlie? Well, do you takemy offer?'
I laughed and declined, to his great elation, and just then the gongsounded and we were away to our toilets.
While making my toilet for dinner, I amused myself by conjecturingwhether there could be any foundation in fact for Mark's boast, that MissBrandon liked him. Women are so enigmatical--some in everything--all inmatters of the heart. Don't they sometimes actually admire what isrepulsive? Does not brutality in our sex, and even rascality, interestthem sometimes? Don't they often affect indifference, and occasionallyeven aversion, where there is a different sort of feeling?
As I went down I heard Miss Lake chatting with her queen-like cousin nearan open door on the lobby. Rachel Lake was, indeed, a very constant guestat the Hall, and the servants paid her much respect, which I look upon asa sign that the young heiress liked her and treated her withconsideration; and indeed there was an insubordinate and fiery spirit inthat young lady which would have brooked nothing less and dreamed ofnothing but equality.