"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 shall turn my hand to some useful employment," said I;
"digging, for instance."
"Digging!" ejaculated Sir Richard, "and you a scholar--and what
is more, a gentleman!"
"My dear Sir Richard," said I, "that all depends upon how you
would define a gentleman. To me he would appear, of late years,
to have degenerated into a creature whose chief end in life is to
spend money he has never earned, to reproduce his species with a
deplorable frequency and promiscuity, habitually to drink more
than is good for him, and, between whiles, to fill in his time
hunting, cock-fighting, or watching entranced while two men pound
each other unrecognizable in the prize ring. Occasionally he has
the good taste to break his neck in the hunting field, or get
himself gloriously shot in a duel, but the generality live on to
a good old age, turn their attention to matters political and,
following the dictates of their class, damn reform with a
whole-hearted fervor equalled only by their rancor."
"Deuce take me!" ejaculated Sir Richard feebly, while Mr. Grainger
buried his face in his pocket-handkerchief.
"To my mind," I ended, "the man who sweats over a spade or follows
the tail of a plough is far nobler and higher in the Scheme of
Things than any of your young 'bloods' driving his coach and four
to Brighton to the danger of all and sundry."
Sir Richard slowly got up out of his chair, staring at me
open-mouthed. "Good God!" he exclaimed at last, "the boy's a
Revolutionary."
I smiled and shrugged my shoulders, but, before I could speak,
Mr. Grainger interposed, sedate and solemn as usual: "Referring to your proposed tour, Mr. Peter, when do you expect
to start?"