The Quest of Youth , livre ebook

The Quest of Youth
by Jeffery Farnol

First published in 1927
This edition published by Rare Treasures
Victoria, BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany
Trava2909@gmail.com
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The Quest of Youth


by JEFFERY FARNOL











To "PHIL" IN GRATEFUL AFFECTION I DEDICATE THIS BOOK

CHAPTER I
IN WHICH DOCTOR WOTHERSPOON PRESCRIBES
A stately chamber, high, spacious and luxuriously furnished, frompriceless rugs on polished floor to richly carven ceiling; an elegantchamber of an exquisite, almost feminine, refinement; yet nothing wasthere so stately, so elegant, so altogether exquisite and supremelyrefined as the gentleman who sat reading in the deep elbow chair besidethe open lattice; a tall, handsome gentleman whose garments, each amiracle of sartorial achievement, clung to his shapely figure as ifthey loved him, and whose pale, delicately featured face, adorned withglossy whiskers à la mode, bore the proud stamp of birth and highbreeding and might have been commanding by reason of its clean-cut lineof nose and chin, but for the droop of over-sensitive lips, lack-lustreeyes and general air of weariness and languor. Indeed, Sir Marmaduke,Anthony, Ashley, John de la Pole Vane-Temperly looked precisely what hewas, to wit—the last and very finest of a long line of fine gentlemen,bored to extinction with everything in general and himself inparticular.
A soft rapping at the door, and a discreet, gentleman-like personentered softly, coughed delicately behind a finger and stood bowinguntil the student condescended to become aware of him.
"Yes, Paxton?"
The gentleman's gentleman bowed a little lower and murmured:
"Doctor Robert Wotherspoon, sir. Are you in, sir?"
Sir Marmaduke sighed, closed book on slim finger and inclined his headlanguidly, whereat Paxton bowed himself out and presently returned toannounce:
"Doctor Wotherspoon!"
Hardly was the name uttered than in upon the chaste seclusion of thatstately apartment strode a shortish, thick-set man with a stamp ofheavy boots, a jingle of rusty spurs and swirl of spattered coat tails,a heavy-breathing man who tossed whip and weather-beaten hat at a chair(which they missed) and stumping up to Sir Marmaduke, halted to staredown at him, legs wide apart and square chin in hairy fist.
"Tongue!" he snorted.
"My dear Bob!" exclaimed Sir Marmaduke, recoiling.
"Show it!" vociferated the doctor.
"My good Robert!"
"Pulse!" and Sir Marmaduke's arm was seized and masterful fingersforced themselves beneath delicate, frilled wristband, all in a moment."Now, p'tout y'r tongue!" barked Dr. Wotherspoon.
"Gad so, Bob—you mistake, I—"
"Not a bit, Tony—y'r bilious! 'S liver! Eating too much! Doing toolittle!"
"Horrible!" ejaculated Sir Marmaduke and, gently but resolutely freeinghis wrist, he shook his visitor's hand. "In heaven's name sit down,Bob, and pray allow me a word—"
"'S bile!" growled the doctor, thudding into the nearest chair."Prescribe skipping rope! Nothing like jumpin' t' shake liver—freesducts—"
"I wished to consult you about young Bellamy, your godson—"
"'N' your nevvy, Marmaduke!"
"True—confound him! I hear the young fool is in trouble again."
"No—out! Boy's bolted."
"You mean he has positively absconded?"
"'S it, Marmy! Hopped the twig—cut his stick—'tleast, so Thornburywrites."
"Ay, Thornbury—a most excellent man of business—"
"'N' lively as a dried herring!"
"My dear Robert!" murmured Sir Marmaduke, lifting white hand withsublime jesture of reprobation. "Really!"
"'Es, really!" nodded the doctor. "Thornbury's a creeter b'got 'twixt'n inkpot 'n' a roll o' parchment! A mummy, that's what! RupertBellamy (dev'lish name) is young 'n' wild as a colt! Now how may mummymanage colt? Can't! An' that's what again!" Saying which, Doctor Bobwrenched snuff-box from pocket, opened it, dug thence a large pinch,some of which he inhaled with three loud snorts; the rest he scatteredover himself and the immediate neighbourhood to Sir Marmaduke'smanifest horror and discomfort. Said he:
"Pray remember, Bob, that after your godson's—"
"'N' your nevvy! Y'r own sister's only child, Marmy!"
"She is dead!" said Sir Marmaduke gently.
"An' his father too!" nodded the doctor.
"Which is perhaps as well, Bob," quoth Sir Marmaduke, frowningslightly. "However, after Thomas' lamentable failure at your own nobleprofession, the worthy Thornbury agreed to admit him into his office,purely out of regard to myself, and now—you say the youth has—"
"Bolted!" quoth the doctor. "But what—"
"Also he is in debt again."
"Six hundred odd pounds!" nodded the doctor.
"So I understand. He wrote me a highly characteristic letter—"
"Which y' ignored, o' course!"
"Of course!" nodded Sir Marmaduke.
"Having paid 's debts once a'ready."
"Twice!" sighed Sir Marmaduke. "What has become of him, Bob?"
"Dooce knows! Why trouble? Boy's nothin' t' you—never was! Y' nevertrouble t' see him."
"Happily not since his infancy."
"S' if he wants t' go t' the dooce, dooce take him—eh, Tony?"
"By no means, Bob, for though he is an infliction he is also a relationand I must act accordingly—"
"Pay's debts?"
"Certainly."
"Because o' y'r name—eh?"
"Precisely!"
"An' what o' the boy?"
"He is a problem does not interest me."
"Umph!" exclaimed the doctor. "Ha!"
"However, I shall reëstablish his credit, of course."
"Because o' y'r name—eh?"
"Yes, and—"
"Y'r name's got a lot t' answer for, Marmaduke Anthony!"
"What may you mean?"
"Bile 't present—y'r liver, Tony. Y'r yellow as a guinea!"
"Pooh—nonsense, man!" exclaimed Sir Marmaduke, glancing uneasilytowards an adjacent mirror. "To be sure I am aware of my forty-fiveyears—"
"Umph!" quoth the doctor.
"Life has long since lost its zest and savour—"
"Ha!" quoth the doctor.
"Existence," sighed Sir Marmaduke, warming to his theme, "is become agrowing weariness, a dawning calamity, a nauseating prospect ofmonotonous to-morrows stretching drearily away to the inevitable anddistressing end—"
"'S bile!" snarled Doctor Bob. "Bile! Spleen! Liver!— That's what!"
"Nay, my dear Robert, do but reflect," sighed Sir Marmaduke, viewingthe doctor with his sad, lack-lustre eyes; "forty-five is a tragic age!Youth's pinions are clipped and where we were wont to soar, high aboveconsequences, scornful of difficulties and dangers, our eyes upon thezenith, poor Middle-age must trudge it in the dust, his gaze bentearthwards, Common-sense and Respectability his companions to point outthe ever-growing difficulties of his way— And I wasforty-five—yesterday, Bob!"
"Ho!" barked the doctor. "And what o' that? Look 't me—I'm fifty,sound wind 'n' limb—eat well, sleep well, drink well—'n' why?Because I don't trouble 'bout m' own confounded carcass; too infernalbusy wi' other people's. Th' only trouble wi' you, Tony, is Marmaduke,Anthony, Ashley, John de la Pole—'n' all the rest on 'em! Y'self an'y'r name's too much for ye—an' that's what!"
"And this morning," sighed Sir Marmaduke, glancing at his companionwith twinkling eyes, "this morning my fellow discovered a grey hairabove my right ear!"
"Grey fiddlestick!" snarled the doctor. "Look 't me! Damme, I'm greyall over, an't I? Yet full o' vigour 'n' energy!"
"You were distressingly energetic as a school-boy, I remember—"
"So were you!" retorted the doctor. "A very imp o' mischief! D' yemind scaling the church tower? D' ye mind settin' Farmer Barton's rickafire? Ha' ye forgot y'r fight wi' the big butcher boy?"
Sir Marmaduke's gloomy brow cleared somewhat.
"I had him quite groggy in the fourth round!" he murmured.
"'N' licked him in th' seventh!" cried the doctor. "Begad, ye werespry 'nough then—"
"But to-day I 'm forty-five, Bob! A weary soul disillusioned witheverything, finding joy in nothing, not even—himself!"
"Try falling in love."
"Never again, Bob!"
"B'cause a brainless little fool jilted ye—years ago!"
"Never again!" repeated Sir Marmaduke mournfully.
"Then marry without and get children—"
"Heaven forbid!" exclaimed Sir Marmaduke, shuddering. "To see myselfrepeated in miniature would be most abhorrent!"
"Then travel."
"Five years I wandered, Bob, and found teeming cities as desolate asthe wilderness."
"Then why not shoot somebody? Y've had no duels lately—eh?"
"No, Bob! I regard duelling nowadays as a wearisome social functionand, moreover, being an accurate shot, the outcome is everdistressingly certain. Hence, even this polite pastime fails me."Here Sir Marmaduke shook his head again and, though his eyes twinkled,sighed more dismally than ever. "Forty-five!" he murmured."Grey-haired! Life a desolate waste! A sorry world and myself thesorriest creature in it—"
"Spleen!" barked the doctor. "All cursed spleen! Your disease isease, Tony! Too much luxury, leisure an' lucre! You 've become such apersonage y' are scarce human, so rich 'n' influential you 've no needfor effort, 'n' effort's life! Could a b'nef'cent fate pauperize ye,strip ye o' rank 'n' wealth, rig ye in homespun 'n' send ye into anunfriendly world t' make a living—ye'd starve—perish, an' that'swhat!"
Sir Marmaduke smoothed arched eyebrow with slim finger and pondered thequestion.
"Perish?" he murmured, at last. "I venture to think not, Bob!"
"Y' 'd perish!" snarled Doctor Robert, diving for his hat and whip.
"I should suffer," mused Sir Marmaduke; "I should endure a thousanddiscomforts, beyond a doubt, but—perish?"
"In six months—less!" snarled the doctor.
"Perish?" repeated Sir Marmaduke. "No—"
"Yes!" snapped the doctor, rising. "In less 'n six months or—comeback younger than y' went!"
"Younger? How so, Bob?"
"Lookee, Tony! T' learn the virtues o' Poverty and Adversity, t' frontMisery un