The Dodd Family Abroad, Vol. I

"Where's my fur cloak? Is my muff put in? I don't see the gray shawl. Mary Anne, what has become of the rug? I 'm certain half our things are left behind. How could it be otherwise, seeing the absurd haste in which we came away!" These are a few specimens of Mrs. D.'s lucubrations, given per saltum as we bumped through the deep ruts of the road, and will explain, as well as a chapter on the subject, the train in which her thoughts were proceeding.

Ay, Tom! for all the disgrace and ignominy of that miserable night and morning, she had no other sentiment of sorrow than for the absurd haste in which we came away. I had firmly determined not to recur to this unpleasant affair, and to let it sleep amongst the archives of similar disagreeable reminiscences, but this provocation was really too strong for me! Were they women? – were they human beings, and could reason this way? – were the questions that struggled for an answer within me! I tried to repress the temptation, but I could not, and so I resolved, if I could do no more, at least to discipline my emotions, and hold them within certain limits. I waited till we were out of the grounds, – I delayed till we were some miles on the high-road, – and then, with a voice subdued to a mere whisper, and in a manner that vouched for the most complete subjection, said, —

"Mrs. Dodd, may I be permitted to inquire – and I premise that the object of my question is neither any personal nor a mere vulgar curiosity, but simply to investigate what might be termed a physiological fact, namely, whether females really feel less than the males of the human species?"

My dear Tom, the calm tone of my exordium availed me nothing. To no end was it that I propounded the purely scientific basis of my investigation. She flew at me at once like a tigress. The abstract question that I had submitted for discussion she flung indignantly to the winds, and boldly asked me if I thought "to escape that way." "Escape " – that way! I was thunderstruck, stupefied, dumfoundered! Did the woman want to infer – could she by any diabolical ingenuity or perverseness imply – that I was possibly to blame for our late calamity? You 'll not credit it; nobody could, but it is the truth, notwithstanding. That was exactly the charge she now preferred against me. If I bad taken proper steps to investigate the "Baron's" real pretensions, – if I had made due and fitting inquiries about him, – if I had been commonly intelligent, and displayed the most ordinary knowledge of the world, – in fact, if, instead of being a bull-headed, blundering old Irish country gentleman, I had been a cross between a foreign prefect and a London detective, the chances were that we had been spared the mortification of exhibiting ourselves as endeavoring to dupe people who were already successfully engaged in duping us! This wasn't all, Tom, but she boldly propounded the startling declaration that she and Mary Anne both had suspected the Baron to be an imposition and a cheat! and although his low manners and vulgar tone imposed upon me, they had always regarded him as shockingly underbred! It was I, however, who had rushed into the whole misadventure, – it was I concocted the entire scheme, —I planned the visit, —I made up the match. My stupid cupidity, my blundering anxiety for a grand alliance, were the causes of all the evil! The mock munificence of my settlements was hurled at me as proof positive of the eagerness of my duplicity, and I was overwhelmed with a mass of accusations which I verily believe would have obtained a verdict against me at the hands of any honest and impartial jury of my countrymen.

I have more than once had to acknowledge, that when perfectly assured in my own conscience of my innocence, Mrs. D. has contrived to shake my doubts about myself, and at last succeeded in making me believe that I might have been culpable without knowing it. I suppose in these cases I may have been morally innocent and legally guilty, but I 'll not puzzle my head by any subtlety of explanation; enough if I own that a less enviable predicament no man need covet!

I sat under this new allegation sad, silent, and abashed; and although Mary Anne said but little, yet her occasional "You must admit, papa," "You will surely acknowledge," or "You cannot possibly forget," chimed in, and swelled the full chorus of accusation against me. If I said nothing, I thought the more. My reflections took this shape: Here is another blessed fruit of our coming abroad. Such an incident never could have befallen us at home. Why, then, should we continue to live on exposed to similar casualties?

Why reside in a land where we cannot distinguish the man of rank from his scullion, and where all the forms that constitute good breeding and, maybe, good grammar, are quite beyond our appreciation? Every dilettante scribbler for the magazines who sketches his rambles in Spain or Switzerland, grows jocose over some eccentricity or absurdity of his countrymen. Their blunders in language, dress, or demeanor are duly chronicled and relied upon as subjects for a droll chapter; but let me tell you, Tom, that the difficulties of foreign residence are very considerable indeed, and, except to the man who issues from England with a certain well-proved and admitted station, social or political, the society into which he may be thrown is a downright lottery. The first error he commits, and it is almost inevitable, is to mistake the common forms of hat-lifting and bowing for acquaintanceship. "Bull" thinks that the gentleman desires to know him, and obligingly condescends to accept his overtures. The foreigner, somewhat amused to see the veriest commonplace of politeness received as evidence of acquaintance, profits by the admission, chats, and comes to tea. Now, Tom, whether it be cheap soup, cheap clothing, cheap travelling, or cheap friendship, I have a strong prejudice against them all. My notion is that the real article is not to be had without some cost and trouble.

These were some of my ruminations as we rattled along; and although the road was interesting, and the day a fine bracing autumnal one, my mind was not attuned to pleasure or enjoyment We stopped to bait at Donaueschingen, for we were obliged, by some accident or other, to take the same horses on, and found a most comfortable little inn at the sign of the "Sharpshooter." After dinner we took a stroll in the garden of the palace of the mediatized Prince of Furstenberg; for, of course, there is a palace and a mediatized prince wherever there is a town of three thousand inhabitants throughout Germany. By the way, Napoleon treated these people pretty much like our own Encumbered Estates Court at home. He sold them out without any ceremony, and got rid of the feudal privileges and the seignorial rights with a bang of the auctioneer's hammer. Of course, as with us, there was often a great deal of individual hardship, but these little principalities were large evils, and half the disturbances of Europe grew out of their corrupt administration.

There is, I often fancy, a natural instinctive kind of corruption incidental to the dominion of a small state. They are too small and too insignificant to attract any attention from the world without, and within their own narrow limits there is no such thing as a public opinion. The ruler, consequently, is free to follow the caprices of his folly, his cruelty, or his wastefulness. He has neither to dread a parliament nor a newspaper. If he send his small contingent – a commander-in-chief and a drummer of great experience – to the great army of the Confederation he belongs to, he may tax his subjects, or hang them, to his heart's content! Now, I cannot imagine a worse state of things than this, nor any more likely to foster that spirit of discontent which every hour is adding to the feeling of the Continent.

While I am following this theme, I am forgetting what was uppermost a few minutes back in my mind. In the garden of the same palace, which belongs to a certain fount Furstenberg, there is a singularly beautiful little spring; it bubbles up amidst flowers and grass, and overruns the greensward in many a limpid streamlet. There is something in the unadorned simplicity of this tiny well, rippling through the yellow daffodils and "starry river buds," wonderfully pleasing; but what an interest fills the mind as we hear that this is the source of the Danube! "The mighty river that sweeps along through the rocky gorges of Upper Austria, washes the foundations of the Imperial Vienna, and flows on, ever swelling and widening and deepening, to the Black Sea, – that giant stream, so romantic in its associations with the touching tale of our own Richard, – so picturesque in its windings, so teeming with interest to the poet, the painter, the merchant, and the politician, there it is, a little crystal rivulet, whose destiny might well seem limited to the flowery borders, and blossoming beds around it." This isn't mine, Tom, though it's exactly what I would have said if the words occurred to me, but I copy it out of the Visitors' Book, where strangers write their names, and, so to say, leave their cards upon the infant Danube.

Truisms are only tiresome to the hearer; they are a delightful recreation to the man that tells them, so that I am sorely tempted to mention some of those that suggested themselves to my mind as I stood beside that little spring, – all the analogies that at once arose to my fancy, between human life and the course of a mighty river, between the turnings and twinings and aberrations of childhood, the headlong current of youth, the mature force of manhood, and the trackless issue, at last, into the great ocean of eternity! One lesson we may assuredly gather from the contemplation: not to predicate from small beginnings against the likelihood of a glorious future!

I left the place regretfully; the tranquil quietude of my two hours' ramble through the garden restored me to a serene and peaceful frame of mind. The little village itself, the tidy, unpretending inn, clean, comfortable, and a model of cheapness, were all to my fancy, and I could very well have liked to linger on there for a week or so. After all, what a commentary is it upon all pursuits of pleasure and amusement, to think that we really find our greatest happiness in those little, out-of-the-way, isolated spots, remote from all the attractions and blandishments of the gay world! I don't mean to say that Mrs. D. quite concurred with me, for she grew very impatient at my delay, and wondered excessively "what peculiar attraction the garden of the palace might have possessed, to make me forget myself." But it's not so easy a thing to do as she thinks! Forgetting oneself, Tom, implies so many other oblivions. It means forgetting one's tenants that have been over-rented, one's banker overdrawn, one's horses overworked, one's house out of repair, one's estate out at elbows; forgetting the duns that torment, the creditors that torture you, – the latitats, the writs, the mortgages, the bonds, – all the inflictions, in fact, consequent to parchment, signed, sealed, and delivered over to your persecuting angel! Oh dear, oh dear! what a thirsty swig would I take of Lethe if I could! and how happy would I be to start fresh in life without any one of the "liabilities," as they call them, that attach to Kenny Dodd!

I remember, when I was a schoolboy, no day of the week had such terrors for me as Saturday, because we were obliged to answer a repetition of the whole week's work. That carrying up of the past was a load that always destroyed me! My notion was to let bygones be bygones, and it was downright cruelty to take me over the old ground of my former calamities. The same prejudice has tracked me through life. I can face a new misfortune as well as my neighbors; what kills me is going back over the old ones. Let me tell you, too, that there is a great deal of balderdash talked in the world about experience, – that with experience you 'll do this, that, and t' other better. Don't believe a word of it. You might as well tell me that having the typhus will teach a man patience the next time he catches a fever! Take my word for it, be as fresh as you can against the ills of life, – know as little of them as you can, – think as little of them! Keep your constitution – whether it be moral or physical – as intact as you are able, and rely on it you 'll not fare the worse when it comes to the trial!

It was a fine evening, with a thin rim of a new moon in the sky, when we got ready to leave Donaueschingen. The bill for dinner came to about five shillings for three of us, wine included, and no charge for rooms, so that when I gave as much more to the servants, the enthusiasm of the household knew no bounds. The housemaid, indeed, in an excess of enthusiasm, would kiss my hand, and got rebuked by my wife as a "forward hussy, that ought to be well looked after." From this incident, however, our attention was soon diverted by the arrival of our second carriage, but without James! A note from Morris explained that he did not like to detain the servants, lest it should prove inconvenient to us, and that he would take care James should join us at Constance, – probably early on the next day. This note was handed to me by the post-boy, – a circumstance speedily accounted for, as I got out and saw that the whole company, consisting of Betty, Augustine, the courier, Paddy Byrne, and a fifth, unknown, were all very drunk and unable to speak, closely wedged in the britschka! Of course it was no time to ask for any explanations, and we came on to this place, which we reached by midnight.

As I have given you a somewhat full narrative of what befell us, I may as well, ere I conclude, add some words of explanation of the state of our amiable followers. Betty Cobb, it appears, was seized with connubial symptoms while we were at the castle, and, yielding to the soft impeachment, and not being deterred by any discovery of false rank or pretensions, actually bestowed her hand on a distinguished swineherd that pertained to the place. The wedding took place after we left, the convivial festivities being continued all along the road till they overtook us. Had the unlucky girl married a New Zealand chief, or a Kaffir, her choice could not have fallen upon a more thoroughly savage specimen of the human race. The fellow is a Black Forest Caliban of the worst description. The question is now what to do with him, for Mrs. D. will not consent to part with Betty, nor will Betty separate from her liege lord; so that amongst my other blessings I may number that of carrying about the world a scoundrel that would disgrace a string of galley-slaves! Just imagine, Tom, in the rumble of a travelling-carriage a fellow six foot and a half high, dressed in a cowhide, with an ox gond in his hand, and a long naked knife in his girdle, speaking no intelligible tongue, nor capable of any function save the herding of wild animals, – the most uncultivated specimen of brute nature I ever heard, saw, or even read of! Fancy, I say, the pleasure of "lugging" this creature over the Continent of Europe, feeding, housing, and clothing him, his sole claim being that he is the husband of that precious bargain, Betty Cobb!

Why, he 'd bring shame on a beast caravan! The best of it is, too, he holds to his "caste" like a Hindoo, and refuses all other occupation save the charge of swine. He would not aid to unload the carriage, – would not lift a trunk, nor carry a carpet-bag; and when admonished by Paddy for his laziness, showed two inches of a broad knife up his sleeve with a grin meant to imply that he knew how to resist any assault on his dignity! That the scoundrel has no respect for law, is clear enough; so that my hope is he will commit some terrible infraction, and that we may be able to send him to the galleys for the rest of his days. How I 'm to keep him and Paddy apart is more than yet appears to me. I suppose, in the end, one of them will kill the other.

From what I see here, the expense of keeping this beast – at an hotel at least – will be equal to the cost of three ordinary servants; for he has no regular meal-times, but has food cooked for him "promiscuously," and eats – if I 'm to credit the landlord – either a kid or a lamb per diem, A bear would n't be half the expense, and a far more companionable beast besides. It is but fair to say that Betty seems to adore him; she crams the monster all day with stolen victuals, and appears to have no other care in life than in watching after him.

What induces Mrs. D. to feel this sudden attachment to Betty herself, I can't imagine. Up to this she railed at her unceasingly, and deplored the day and the hour she took her from home. But now, when this alliance really makes her insupportable, she won't hear of parting with her, and submits to a degree of tyranny from this woman that is utterly inexplicable. It's another of those feminine anomalies, Tom, that neither you nor I, nor maybe anybody else, will ever be able to reconcile.

You will probably wonder how, at a moment like this, smarting as I am under the combined effects of insult and disappointment, I can turn my attention to a matter of this trifling nature; but I confess to you that the admission of this uncivilized element into the circle of my family inspires me with feelings of disgust, not unmixed with terror; for what he may do in any access of fury the infernal gods alone can say. So long as we are here, in this remote and little-visited town, the notice he attracts is confined to a troop of street loungers who follow him; but I have yet to learn how we are ever to make our appearance in a regular city in his company.

Now to another matter, Tom, and the most essential of all. What are we to do for money? for, whether we go on or go back, we must have it. I have n't the heart to go over the accounts; nor would it put sixpence more in my pockets, if I was like Babbage's calculating-machine! Screw up the tenants, and make them pay the arrears. Healey owes us at least two hundred pounds. Try if he can't pay half. See, besides, if you cannot find a tenant for the place, even for a year. This Exhibition in Dublin will fill the country with strangers; and a good advertisement of Dodsborough, with an account of the "shooting and fishing, capital society, and two packs of hounds in the neighborhood," might take the notice of some aspiring Cockney. From what I see in the papers, Ireland is going to be the fashion this summer. I suppose that she is starved down to the pitch to be "thin and genteel," and that's the reason of it.

Tell me what you think of this great display of "industrial products," as they call it. Are we as wonderful as the Irish papers say, or are we really as backward as the "Times" pronounces us? My own notion is that the whole thing proceeds on a misconception of the country and its capabilities. These Exhibitions are essentially dependent on manufacturing skill for their excellence. Now, we are not a manufacturing people. We are agriculturists, and so are the Yankees; and consequently the utmost we can do is to show off the clever inventions and cunning products of our neighbors. Writing, as I do, confidentially to yourself, I will own, too, that I am not one of those sanguine admirers of these raree-shows, nor do I see in them the seeds of all that progress that others prophesy. Looking at a wonderful mechanical invention will no more teach me to imitate it, than going to Batty's Circus will enable me to jump through a hoop, or ride on my head! Amusement, pleasure, interest, there is in one as much as the other; but as for any educational advantage, Tom, I don't believe in it. To the scientific man these things are all familiar, – to the peasant they are all miraculous; and though the Electric Telegraph be really a wonderful thing, after one sees the miracles of the Church it ceases to surprise you! At all events, give me some account of the place and the people in your next, and write soon.

I have kept this a day back, hoping to announce James's arrival here, but up to this there is no tidings of him. Yours, ever faithfully,

Kenny James Dodd.

P. S. I find now that this town is not in Switzerland, but in Baden, for the police have been here to know "who we are?" and "why we have come?" – two questions that would take longer to answer than they suspect. How absurd these little bits of national prejudice sound, when the symbol of nationality is only a blue post or a white one, and no geographical limit announces a new country. Droll enough, too, they are most importunate in their inquiries after James; as if the appearance of his name in the passport requires that he should be forthcoming when asked for. Ah, Tom! if the fellows that knocked old Europe about in '48 had resolutely set their faces against these stumbling-blocks to civilization – passports, police spies, town dues, and gate imposts, – they 'd have won the sympathy of millions, who do not care a rush about Universal Suffrage and the Liberty of the Press, – and, what is more, the concessions could never have been revoked nor recalled!

To myself, individually, the system presents few annoyances; for I sit serene behind my ignorance of all continental languages, and say to myself, "Touch me if you dare." Maybe they half suspect the substance of my meditations, for they show the greatest deference towards my condition of passive resistance. The Brigadier has just bowed himself out of the room, with what sounded like a hearty curse, but what Mary Anne assures me was a sincere protestation of his sentiment of "high consideration and esteem." And now to dinner.

LETTER XLI. MARY ANNE DODD TO MISS DOOLAN, OF BALLYDOOLAN

Constance on the Lake

Dearest Kitty, – With what rapture do I once more throw myself into the arms of your affection! How devotedly do I seek the sanctuary of my dearest Kitty's heart! It is all over, my sweet friend, – all over! I see you start, – your cheek is bloodless, and your lips tremble, – but reassure yourself, Kitty, and hear me. If there be anything against which I am weak and powerless, – if there be aught in life to oppose which I have neither strength nor energy, – it is the reproach of one I love! Already do I stand accused before you, even now have you arraigned me, and my condemnation is trembling on your lips. Avow it, – own it, dear girl. Your heart, at least, has said the words of my sentence: "All over! so then Mary Anne has jilted him, – changed her mind in the last hour, – trifled with his affections, and made a sport of his feelings." Yes, such is the charge against me; and, trembling as I stand before you, I syllable the word "Guilty." "Guilty, but with extenuating circumstances." Be calm then, be patient; and, above all, be merciful, while I plead before you.

I deny nothing, I evade nothing. I cannot even pretend that my altered feelings originated in any long process of reason or reflection. I will not affect to say that I struggled against conflicting doubts, and only yielded when powerless to resist them. No, dearest, I am above every such shallow artifice; and I own that it was on the very morning your letter arrived – at the moment when my hot tears were falling over the characters traced by your hand – as, enraptured, I kissed the lines that breathed your love – then there suddenly broke upon me a light illumining the dark horizon around me. Space became peopled with forms and images, voices and warnings floated around and above me, and as I read your words – "If, then, your whole heart be his" – I trembled, Kitty, my eyes grew dim, my bosom heaved in agony, and, in my heart-wrung misery, I cried aloud, "Oh, save me from this perfidy, – save me from myself!"

Save that the letter which my fingers grasped convulsively was the offspring of friendship and not of love betrayed, the scene was precisely like that which closes the second act of the "Lucia di Lammermoor." Mamma, the Baron, James, even to the priest, all were there; and, like Lucia, dressed in my bridal robe, the orange-flowers in my hair, and such a love of a Brussels veil fastened mantilla-wise to the back of the head, I stood pale, trembling, and conscience-stricken! the awful words of your question ringing in my ears, like the voice of an angel come to call me to judgment, "'If your whole heart be his!' But it is not," cried I, aloud, – "it is not, it never can be!" I know not in what wild rhapsody my emotions found utterance. I have no memory of that gushing cataract in which overwrought feelings found their channel. I spoke in that rapt enthusiasm in which, as we are told, the ancient priestesses delivered their dream-revealings, for I, too, was as one inspired, as agony alone can inspire. Of myself I know nothing, but I have since heard that the scene was harrowing to a degree that no words can convey. The Baron, mounted on his fastest courser, fled into the woods; James, spirited on by some imagined sense of injury, thirsting for a vengeance on he knew not what or whom, pursued him; mamma was seized with frantic screaming; and even papa himself, whose lethargic humor stands him like an armor of proof, – even he swore and imprecated in a manner that called forth a most impressive rebuke from the chaplain.