A DAY'S RIDE: A LIFE'S ROMANCE.

CHAPTER V.

As I walked onward against the swooping
wind and the plashing rain, I felt a sort of heroic
ardour in the notion of breasting the adverse
waves of life so boldly. It is not every fellow
could do this: throw his knapsack on his
shoulder, seize his stick, and set out in storm
and blackness. No, Potts, my man; for
downright inflexibility of purpose, for bold and resolute
action, you need yield to none! It was, indeed,
an awful night; the thunder rolled and crashed
with scarce an interval of cessation; forked
lightning tore across the sky in every direction;
while the wind swept through the deep glen,
smashing branches and uplifting large trees like
mere shrubs. I was soon completely drenched,
and my soaked clothes hung around with the
weight of lead; my spirits, however, sustained
me, and I toiled along, occasionally in a sort of
wild bravado, giving a cheer as the thunder
rolled close above my head, and trying to sing,
as though my heart were as gay and my spirits
as light as in an hour of happiest abandonment.

Jean Paul has somewhere the theory that
our Good Genius is attached to us from our
birth by a film fine as gossamer, and which few
of us escape rupturing in the first years of youth,
thus throwing ourselves at once without chart
or pilot upon the broad ocean of life. He,
however, more happily constituted, who feels the
guidance of his guardian spirit, recognises the
benefits of its care, and the admonitions of its
wisdom, he is destined to great things. Such
men discover new worlds beyond the seas, carry
conquest over millions, found dynasties, and
build up empires; they whom the world regard
as demigods having simply the wisdom of being
led by Fortune, and not severing the slender
thread that unites them to their destiny. Was
I, Potts, in this glorious category? Had the
lesson of the great moralist been such a warning
to me that I had preserved the filmy link
unbroken? I really began to think so; a certain
impulse, a whispering voice within, that said,
"Go on!" On, ever onward! seemed to be the
accents of that Fate, which had great things in
store for me, and would eventually make me
illustrious.

No illusions of your own, Potts, no phantasmagoria
of your own poor heated fancy, must
wile you away from the great and noble part
destined for you. No weakness, no
faintheartedness, no shrinking from toil, nor even
peril. Work hard to know thoroughly for what
Fate intends you; read your credentials well,
and then go to your post unflinchingly.
Revolving this theory of mine, I walked ever on.
It opened a wide field, and my imagination
disported in it, as might a wild mustang over
some vast prairie. The more I thought over it,
the more did it seem to me the real embodiment
of that superstition which extends to every land
and every family of men. We are Lucky when,
submitting to our Good Genius, we suffer
ourselves to be led along unresistingly; we are
Unlucky when, breaking our frail bonds, we
encounter life unguided and unaided.

What a docile, obedient, and believing pupil
did I pledge myself to be. Fate should see that
she had no refractory nor rebellious spirit in me,
no self-indulgent voluptuary, seeking only the
sunny side of existence, but a nature ready to
confront the rugged conflict of life, and to meet
its hardships, if such were my allotted path.

I applied the circumstances in which I then
found myself to my theory, and met no
difficulty in the adaptation. Blondel was to
perform a great part in my future. Blondel was a
symbol selected by fate to indicate a certain
direction. Blondel was a lamp by which I
could find my way in the dark paths of the
world. With Blondel, my Good Genius would
walk beside me, or occasionally get up on the
crupper, but never leave me or desert me. In
the high excitement of my mind, I felt no sense
of bodily fatigue, but walked on, drenched to
the skin, alternately shivering with cold or
burning with all the intensity of fever. In this
state was it that I entered the little inn of
Ovoca soon after daybreak, and stood dripping
in the bar, a sad spectacle of exhaustion and
excitement. My first question was, "Has
Blondel been here?" and before they could
reply, I went on with all the rapidity of delirium
to assure them that deception of me would be
fruitless; that Fate and I understood each
other thoroughly, travelled together on the best
of terms, never disagreed about anything, but,
by a mutual system of give and take, hit it off
like brothers. I talked for an hour in this
strain, and then my poor faculties, long
struggling and sore pushed, gave way completely, and
I fell into brain fever.