Chapter 41

BAT OF THE GILL

Upon that same evening the cottage in the gill was well snowed up, as befell it every winter, more or less handsomely, according to the wind. The wind was in the right way to do it truly now, with just enough draught to pile bountiful wreaths, and not enough of wild blast to scatter them again. "Bat of the Gill," as Mr. Bert was called, sat by the fire, with his wife and daughter, and listened very calmly to the whistle of the wind, and the sliding of the soft fall that blocked his window-panes.

Insie was reading, Mrs. Bert was knitting stockings, and Mr. Bert was thinking of his own strange life. It never once occurred to him that great part of its strangeness sprang from the oddities of his own nature, any more than a man who has been in a quarrel believes that he could have kept out of it. "Matters beyond my own control have forced me to do this and that," is the sure belief of every man whose life has run counter to his fellows, through his own inborn diversity. In this man's nature were two strange points, sure (if they are strong enough to survive experience) to drive anybody into strange ways: he did not care for money, and he contemned rank.

How these two horrible twists got into his early composition is more than can be told, and in truth it does not matter. But being quite incurable, and meeting with no sympathy, except among people who aspired to them only, and failed--if they ever got the chance of failing--these depravations from the standard of mankind drove Christopher Bert from the beaten tracks of life. Providence offered him several occasions of return into the ordinary course; for after he had cast abroad a very nice inheritance, other two fortunes fell to him, but found him as difficult as ever to stay with. Not that he was lavish upon luxury of his own, for no man could have simpler tastes, but that he weakly believed in the duty of benevolence, and the charms of gratitude. Of the latter it is needless to say that he got none, while with the former he produced some harm. When all his bread was cast upon the waters, he set out to earn his own crust as best he might.

Hence came a chapter of accidents, and a volume of motley incidents in various climes, and upon far seas. Being a very strong, active man, with gift of versatile hand and brain, and early acquaintance with handicrafts, Christopher Bert could earn his keep, and make in a year almost as much as he used to give away, or lend without redemption, in a general day of his wealthy time. Hard labor tried to make him sour, but did not succeed therein.

Yet one thing in all this experience vexed him more than any hardship, to wit, that he never could win true fellowship among his new fellows in the guild of labor. Some were rather surly, others very pleasant (from a warm belief that he must yet come into money); but whatsomever or whosoever they were, or of whatever land, they all