  I and Clive were friends—and why not? Friends! I think you laugh, my lad. Clive it was gave England India, while your father gives—egad, England nothing but the graceless boy who lures him on to speak— “Well, Sir, you and Clive were comrades—” with a tongue thrust in your cheek! Very true: in my eyes, your eyes, all the world’s eyes, Clive was man, I was, am, and ever shall be—mouse, nay, mouse of all its clan Sorriest sample, if you take the kitchen’s estimate for fame; While the man Clive—he fought Plassy, spoiled the clever foreign game, Conquered and annexed and Englished! Never mind! As o’er my punch (You away) I sit of evenings,—silence, save for biscuit crunch, Black, unbroken,—thought grows busy, thrids each pathway of old years, Notes this forthright, that meander, till the long past life appears Once, and well remembered still,—I’m startled in my solitude Ever and anon by—what’s the sudden mocking light that breaks On me as I slap the table till no rummer-glass but shakes While I ask—aloud, I do believe, God help me!—“Was it thus? Can it be that so I faltered, stopped when just one step for us—” (Us,—you were not born, I grant, but surely some day born would be) “—One bold step had gained a province” (figurative talk, you see) “Got no end of wealth and honour,—yet I stood stock-still no less?” —“For I was not Clive,” you comment: but it needs no Clive to guess Wealth were handy, honour ticklish, did no writing on the wall Warn me “Trespasser, ’ware man-traps!” Him who braves that notice—call Hero! None of such heroics suit myself who read plain words, Doff my hat, and leap no barrier. Scripture says, the land’s the Lord’s: Louts then—what avail the thousand, noisy in a smock-frocked ring, Higher warrant must you show me ere I set one foot before T’other in that dark direction, though I stand for evermore Poor as Job and meek as Moses. Evermore? No! By and by Job grows rich and Moses valiant, Clive turns out less wise than I. Don’t object “Why call him friend, then?” Power is power, my boy, and still Marks a man,—God’s gift magnific, exercised for good or ill. You’ve your boot now on my hearth-rug, tread what was a tiger’s skin; Rarely such a royal monster as I lodged the bullet in! True, he murdered half a village, so his own death came to pass; Still, for size and beauty, cunning, courage—ah, the brute he was! Why, that Clive,—that youth, that greenhorn, that quill-driving clerk, in fine,— He sustained a siege in Arcot ... But the world knows! Pass the wine. Where did I break off at? How bring Clive in? Oh, you mentioned “fear!” We were friends then, Clive and I: so, when the clouds, about the orb Late supreme, encroaching slowly, surely threaten to absorb Ray by ray its noontide brilliance,—friendship might, with steadier eye Drawing near, hear what had burned else, now no blaze—all majesty. Too much bee’s-wing floats my figure? Well, suppose a castle’s new: None presume to climb its ramparts, none find foothold sure for shoe ’Twixt those squares and squares of granite plating the impervious pile As his scale-mail’s warty iron cuirasses a crocodile. Reels that castle thunder-smitten, storm-dismantled? From without Scrambling up by crack and crevice, every cockney prates about Towers—the heap he kicks now! Turrets—just the measure of his cane! Will that do? Observe moreover—(same similitude again)— Such a castle seldom crumbles by sheer stress of cannonade: Grass o’ergrows, o’ergrows till night-birds congregating find no holes Fit to build like the topmost sockets made for banner-poles. So Clive crumbled slow in London, crashed at last. A week before, Dining with him,—after trying churchyard chat of days of yore,— Both of us stopped, tired as tombstones, head-piece, foot-piece, when they lean Each to other, drowsed in fog-smoke, o’er a coffined Past between. As I saw his head sink heavy, guessed the soul’s extinguishment By the glazing eyeball, noticed how the furtive fingers went Where a drug-box skulked behind the honest liquor,—“One more throw Try for Clive!” thought I: “Let’s venture some good rattling question!” So— “Come Clive, tell us”—out I blurted—“what to tell in turn, years hence, When my boy—suppose I have one—asks me on what evidence I maintain my friend of Plassy proved a warrior every whit Frederick the Fierce himself! Clive told me once”—I want to say— “Which feat out of all those famous doings bore the bell away —In his own calm estimation, mark you, not the mob’s rough guess— Which stood foremost as evincing what Clive called courageousness! Come! What moment of the minute, what speck-centre in the wide Circle of the action saw your mortal fairly deified? (Let alone that filthy sleep-stuff, swallow bold this wholesome Port!) If a friend has leave to question,—when were you most brave, in short?” Up he arched his brows o’ the instant—formidably Clive again. “When was I most brave? I’d answer, were the instance half as plain As another instance that’s a brain-lodged crystal—curse it!—here Freezing when my memory touches—ugh!—the time I felt most fear. |
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