: his cheeks and now for the first time after many years was heard from his lips the Russian language. "What is the matter?" said the Swiss, his comrade, with perfect composure, to the Irish butler Mac Arthur. "The son of a . . is a woman!" answered the butler. "Did you ever hear such a soft language as she makes of her Russian?" He had not finished when his lady, indignant at some word in the sentence, walked toward him fiercely from behind, and seizing him by the collar, gave him a hearty kick in the bull's eye of the pantaloon, with "I will teach you decency, you reptile!" He retired and sat down by a sailor, who asked him in the universal silence that had succeeded, "Pat, how do you like the new fashion of sharp-toed shoes?" "Sir," answered he, "I would have you to know, my name is not Pat nor anything like it, but Agrippa Mac Arthur." "No offence, I hope, Mr. Agrippa Mac Arthur. It would have been uncharitable and unchristianlike, if I could have seen such a sad mischance befall a fellow-creature, and hold my tongue upon it. Suppose you try a pickled herring while the hurt is fresh a rare thing to bring out the fire that flies from a witch's toe-nail!" : "No, Agrippa was consoled by friendship. thank you," replied he; "she shall never have the satisfaction of seeing it." And then whispered in the sailor's ear, "What a marksman the vixen is!" We must now endure the griefs and tribulations of the poor Russian whose flute was broken. "Can not you repair it, Michael?" said Le Doux, humanely. "Saint Nicolas could not!" answered he, with a sigh from the bottom of his heart. And he crossed himself as rapidly as possible, that his contrition might be observed by the saint at the first glance after the derogatory words, and before they could well be written down against him. "What is all this blubbering about?" said the Captain to Le Doux. "My servant Michael has broken his flute," answered he, "and the poor fellow is inconsolable. Indeed we could have danced if we had it; the loss is no trifling one to any of us, and heavy to him who made the instrument." "He made it!" cried the captain incredulously. "Yes," said Le Doux, "I saw him cutting the cane, now I remember." "Why then, sir," replied the captain, "he could make such another out of this sugar-stick: let him try his hand." Joy played upon deck like the sun. Even Lady Glengrin grew calm, and said to Le Doux, "These cursed Irish must be treated like dogs, colonel. I hope nevertheless you will excuse my anger." "Madam," said he, dissembling that he had seen the voie de fait, "if you were angry at the accident, I do assure you, your servant was not in fault. Renault slept upon it (as I saw) last night, and perhaps cracked it. I would not tell Michael, to make the man more uneasy, and turn friends into enemies." "But that fellow's impudence, my butler's." "He has been sitting among the sailors, and if indeed he laughed a little, Michael did not see him probably, and I do assure you, if he had, poor Michael is a good creature. They will live again in harmony." : Her ladyship was persuaded that the castigation she had given was unobserved. The flute was made: paniers of grapes and peaches stood ready for any of the three who might be thirsty from the dance and there was a cask containing the wines of Lunel in bottles, covered over with wet leaves and sail-cloth. In the whole ship there was but one rueful face. An old seaman, whose arms and breast had various marks upon them punctured and inlaid with gunpowder, and whose back too bore sundry transverse white stripes, probably from his mother having dreamt of a zebra, was very officious in keeping the leaves and sail-cloth wet. At last he crept away, and whispered to the messmate in whom he placed the most confidence: "Things may happen beyond our reckoning. I have known many such, and have heard of more; but none like this. The Hecla has passed us in the night! Captain Parry has been aboard! As I am a Christian, there is ice among the bottles!" Le Doux had ordered a small provision of it, enough for a day or two, and this was only the morning of the second; and Renault had exerted his utmost skill in preserving and preparing it below. The biblical sailor was much amused at seeing the colonel, who left him an hour before so "deeply penetrated," dance delightfully. After a few compliments to his partner, who was incommoded by the sea and went to lie down, he returned with a countenance full of interest, just as when "life was at stake." "I have always heard the Bible," said he, "called a very dangerous book in the hands of the laity, and I am most anxious to know what was the peculiar harm it did you." "Thomas Paine," answered the sailor, "had written something against it. I had not read this, nor thought of reading it, when I saw in a gazette which I took weekly the advertisement of an Apology for it. An Apology for the Bible! and by a bishop! The word in Greek, I am informed, does not convey the same idea as with us: but I knew nothing of Greek, and was shocked at what I thought an intimation that the book of life required an excuse. I bought it, together with the strictures which provoked it. The fierceness and effrontery of the one, the smooth insincerity and flat yewberry sweetness of the other, equally disgusted me. I had only a single shelf for my books, in all about forty-five or fifty, and never did I think it necessary to conceal one. A neighbour asked me what I thought of these: I answered that I would rather have Paine's pen than Watson's crosier. He entreated me to lend him the volume. Unwilling to propagate the seeds of scepticism, I said, 'I am sorry I can not; I have lent it.' This deliberate and cowardly falsehood brought its punishment. I never had refused a book to an acquaintance, or anything else in my house, and until that moment I had always thought myself as incapable of a falsehood as a denial. In most of our towns and villages the system had now commenced of that which you Frenchmen call espionage: we had no name for it, and have none yet. Before the war, we were somewhat different from other nations. This convulsion of Europe joined, morally speaking, the island to the continent. We then began to talk a language we had never learnt or heard; we had aristocrat and democrat; and, what is worse, our aristocrats and democrats were just like yours." Le Doux bowed and smiled. "I am afraid I have said an uncivil thing," continued the sailor, "and I beg pardon. Injuries in one respect hurt the memory; that is, by contracting it to the narrow point they spring from." abandon his profession. My father was educated at the expense of the late lord, for having saved his son from drowning in the Trent, and not only was indebted for his education to that worthy peer, but for a legacy of five hundred pounds, bequeathed to him in his last words almost. Never was there a tenderer heart, a humbler soul, than my father's. At Oxford he had made great progress in the mathematics, which brought him many enemies, that study being in his time much discouraged there. He was suspected to be a good classical scholar, but his shyness would not let it appear: those who knew him best were not certain of it, for they could judge only from what they saw at lecture, and to those who knew him little there appeared to be a proof to the contrary. When he was about to take his degree, in order that he might be inducted to the rectory of Sandyhurst, one of the examining masters was resolved to pluck him." "A very uncivil interruption!" said Le Doux. "Are the masters themselves so rude?” "You do not understand the term, sir: you do not know perhaps that any single master can prevent a person from taking a degree. A student a year older than my father, and in competition with whom he had carried off a college-prize, discouraged him so at the examination that he lost his degree. He returned into the country, and told his young patron (for the father was lately dead) what had happened. "The story, that my shelf was filled with profane and seditious and indecent books, became current in the parish. My scholars were taken away from me; even those who came upon the charity, disappeared. Parents who had known me "Pooh, Kit,' cried he, patting him on the from my childhood, visited me now only to obtain shoulder, 'go to Glasgow, man! Jim Towne, my a glance at my library. They found no other farrier, was made a doctor there in the twinkling work of ill repute than Paine's, which from a of an eye: the rascal was starving on horse-flesh. sense of honour and openness I had replaced. At present, by a good intelligence with the resurNevertheless all who were in business were threat-rection-men, he holds up his head like a heron ened with the loss of it unless they removed their half-a-wing from the marsh, and looks askance children from my tuition; others removed them, in your face fiercer than a caught polecat, as he as they declared to me, that they might not quarrel passes.' with their customers; for they loved,' they said, 'peace and quiet.' Elias Halliday, that friend who had asked me for the Age of Reason, went to the Reverend Mr. Chisholm, now curate to his father; and he, immediately on the intelligence, drew on his boots and came to me. "Mr. Christopher Normanby,' said he, 'I never thought you taught lads blasphemy and sedition.' "Sir,' answered I, quietly, you, being our spiritual guide, should have inquired into it; for the report I have reason to believe is a fortnight old!' "A damned pretty fellow!' said he, striking his spur with a switch. Well, I must be back to the glebe.' "Mr. Chisholm was never my friend, from the strangest of motives; from possessing what he thought should have been mine. The rectory was presented to his father by Lord Sandyhurst, who resides in another part of the county, and to whom that gentleman was steward. He had been an attorney; but, for some wrong erasure, which he made perhaps by candle-light, he was induced to "My lord,' answered my father, their church is different from ours.' "Go to Cambridge then. My word for it, with your figures and two little straight lines betwixt, they will send you back nicked and cropped and spruce enough for the deanery of Durham. Remember, the rectory is a good eighty a-year . . . by the bye, would you like the perpetual advowson? At the end of the twelvemonth you have five hundred, you know, and we can sign and seal thereupon.. aye, Kit?' "It would be simoniacal,' answered my father. "Simoniacal!' repeated the peer with grave mimicry. The word itself in any man's mouth is enough to make him a hypocrite for life. A sand-boy, who does not know the meaning of it, has only to say it, and it turns him into a pickpocket or swindler. Why, thou cursed fool! simony is everything in form and nothing in fact. Is there a Father in God upon the bench that has not committed it, if you put the thing in place of the letter?' "My father's health declined. 'I tell you what, young man! unless you take a wife it is all Doctor Broom had been surgeon to a ship in the fleet under Rodney, and was the intimate friend of his captain, who, after being in constant service for fifty years, was made an admiral, and, as they call it, laid on the shelf. To kill time, when he had nothing else to kill, he married a bar-maid at Torquay. They both drank hard, and were so affectionate a couple that one did not survive the other above a twelvemonth. They left an infant daughter, ill provided for: the doctor took it, and sent it to school. She was now sixteen he rode over for her, and told her she must come and help him. His garden joined my father's; and he thought of hedges as lawyers think of laws. I have no notion of a hedge,' said he, without a gap in it:' his boots were thick, he was strong and corpulent, he soon made one. Have a care!' said he, grasp my coat-pocket! mind the onion-sauce!' He arrived at my father's with his ward, holding a dish in her two hands, and cried, Kit, my hearty dog, hast any appetite for a young rabbit, clean as a penny, out of my own cub, fed upon bran and sowthistle, and smothered in onions? 6 My father thanked with much courtesy his kind friend, and really felt a good appetite. "If this young lady and yourself will favour me.' of a better and more definite name, we call etherial; something pure and rapid, something that stands impassibly between us and evil, and holds our little world from ruin and corruption; something that unites us here in love and amity, inasmuch as what is mortal can be united, and converts us at last to itself in fulness and perfection."" Le Doux heard the sailor with wonder, and looked at his rigid throat, his reddened breast, his hands covered with wiry and inverted hair. "I am at home again," said he, "I am with my father, and talk freely. If you are tired of me, leave me." "My friend," said Le Doux, "I hear you with interest: pray proceed." "Alice hardly ever would enter the bedchamber again, but she was fond of walking in the garden, steep as it was and short and narrow, and containing but one cherry-tree, some gooseberry-bushes, and a Virginian sumach that darkened the casement of the lower room. My father must go down and talk to his little maid. "Go,' said the doctor, 'I get fond of reading, and you have a power of books here.' "Alice had been long below: she must now go and see what her guardian was doing: he might want her. She tripped up stairs: my father stopped breathless in the middle. Are you coming too, Mr. Normanby? come then. What is the matter? are you tired, you sly romp?' for he had thrown a gooseberry at her bonnet .. 66 6 No, little Alice, the only fault of this house is, that the staircase wants air.' "What! with the door wide open and the windows too, and only the twenty-fourth of May? "Not she, nor I either: we have just eaten Indeed, Mr. Normanby, I cannot but think you the fellow to it.' "Miss will at least sit down.' "No, thank you, sir: I must go.' "Who told you that?' cried the doctor, glancing his eye athwart the back of his chair. She looked out of the window, and answered 'She did not know.' ""Sit down then,' cried her guardian, in the same authoritative tone as before. She was walking toward the only vacant seat, one with a wooden bottom, when my father (an absent man on many occasions) rose hastily, and placed his, which had his pillow upon it, before her. ""O no, sir!' are a very discontented man: you always want something.' "Who makes that noise there?' cried the doc tor. Alice ran down, and found in her turn an inconvenience in the staircase to complain of. If my father had not caught her, who knows what might have happened! It was providential. "Alice,' said my father a few days afterward, I have often seen you eating my gooseberries and cherries, and what is worse, before they are half grown.' "It is very true,' replied she blushing, but I protest it was not in malice, and that whenever I caught myself doing it, I stopped.' "You must pay me.' "How can I? I have only a sampler.' 66 "I will have that then.' "She ran like a greyhound through the gap and brought it. It was neatly worked. "Really, Alice, these letters are formed divinely.' 66 6 'Some of them,' said she, are better than others.' "Whether he slept or woke?' "She looked over them, and sometimes drew one straiter, and sometimes another, across her fore-finger. 66 6 They are not much amiss,' said she. "But show me the difference.' "I would pray God he might sleep, and would make no noise.' "The doctor at this burst into what he called a horse-laugh. Come now,' said he, 'you are a "I think the N is rather better than those on good girl, and I will show you the curiosity I each side.' mentioned.' "O you deserye a coronet for such a present,' cried my father, seeing her embarrassment, and, running before her that he might not suspect he saw it, leaped up at a flower on the sumach. She laughed that he had missed it, and leaped at it too; nor was it at the first attempt that she reached it, nor without help. "Alice,' said the doctor one afternoon, 'you sit working all the day, and work worse than ever; where is your sampler, child? What do you colour at ?' 66 "I will disappoint you, my dear guardian, in your pruning, for frightening me.' My father placed his back against the sumach, looked tenderly and anxiously at Alice, shut the "I thought I might give it, sir, to Mr. Nor-knife, gave it to her, and whispered, 'Don't let manby; I took so much of his fruit whenever I him!' went there.' "Alice,' said he, you are seventeen the first of October: I cannot treat you with green gooseberries and pale cherries, but the grapes against the kitchen chimney will soon be ripe, and I have such a rarity for you, as you never saw in your life-time.' "O dear, sir, do not think of it! and you have patients in the fever who care more about grapes.' "I have one indeed who has such a fever on him, he would play the devil with the best fruit at table, and have it all to himself.' "Let him have it, my dear sir.' ""So I will.' Poor Kit!" "Alice ran and kissed the doctor. cried he. Alice, in the act of starting back, had fainted in his arms. 'Why! how now, girl! art in love with me! 'sblood? I'll bring thee to thyself again.' He had no more scruple with her than a child has with a doll, and his remedies were within reach. Simpleton ! whined he in derision, when she began to recover, he has just as much of a fever as you have.' "Sir, it is time I should stop," said the sailor: "I am relating these things of my mother, just as if she had been an heiress of a thousand a-year, had lived in a turret and run along a corridor from her birth, had married a marquis, and had been presented at court." "She was a pretty girl, I am persuaded," said Le Doux, "and we will suppose in her favour that she had those advantages. Go on, Mr. Normanby; there is little to add, I fancy." "If,' said the doctor, he should have a small matter of ailment, which by neglect is one that might grow violent, would you sit by him? 66 6 'Willingly.' "All day long?' "What frightened you, Alice?' said my father, looking with great solicitude. 66 6 "He knows,' said Alice, shaking her head. And Normanby shall know too, deceitful whisperer !' "O dear, dear sir, don't let him!' "A truce with pruning,' said the doctor, 'I have other things to do. And now for the curiosity.' "I know what you mean,' said my father: 'several boys were after it.' "And will be, if I don't secure it,' said the doctor. "It was late, I suppose,' said my father, 'for that sort of butterfly; yet it was only a butterfly after all.' "O, foul-mouthed fellow!' cried the doctor. "Really, I never troubled my head about such trifles,' replied my father in vindication. "Here is the curiosity! Come and take it, Alice. A man who can hardly live a day without you, and dares not say he loves you.' " Le Doux. And you are the only fruit of this marriage? Normanby. A rough-flavoured and worthless one! I had a sister, three years younger than myself, whose birth caused the death of my mother. Le Doux. Whom you do not remember then. Normanby. I do, and well. I have before me her clear colourless face, which I have heard was always so; her blue quiet eyes, which she turned on me when I ran out of my bed the morning before her death, hearing her sigh and ask about me. The infant was born weakly, and my mother being weaklier still, it was recommended to find "All night too. I have a good deal of courage another nurse for it. "The child is mine," exwhen nobody frightens me.' "And quite alone? you timid thing! Remember how you shrieked when the kitten the other evening purred and rubbed against your legs. Could you stay quite alone?' "Quite, claimed she in desperation, "she shall not have two mothers." "And would you rather she should have none, my blessed Alice?" "I know not, my Normanby. God protect her!" God did; and, when the parent could not hear | oppose any plan conducive to the public good, and her, took her. : would be contented for his share to accept the Soon after the marriage, Lord Sandyhurst worst part of the common and the poor barren pressed my father a second time to enter on the warren, rather than have litigations about tithes. living, which he remarked was holden in trust for He gave notice however, that for the future he him; "or if you do not like it," said his lordship, should take them in kind, until the commisbefore any reply could be given, "you shall have sioners had made their award. Lord Sandyhurst the charity school instead: it is worth as much threatened to litigate the rector would feel the within a trifle, and there are no quarrels or trouble deepest sorrow at any such thing, and would about tithes added to which the house is kept refer the matter to arbitration: nay, his lordship in repair by the trustees." My father thanked should appoint both arbiters. Blight and another, him, and accepted the school. Five hundred who came by accident to visit him, were nomipounds were paid by his lordship's house-steward, nated: Chisholm submitted: he had given his and Mr. Chisholm, the land-steward, became word. On the return of the arbiters they were rector improprietor of Sandyhurst, the bishop very melancholic. having ordained him at the recommendation of his patron, and every necessary preliminary having been legally observed. He was soon appointed his lordship's chaplain, and within the year was doctor of laws. People found that they had been much mistaken in his character. He was a pious, humane, and liberal man; so averse from litigation that no wonder he had not succeeded as a lawyer! He visited the farmers separately; told them he would leave all questions to their discretion and goodness; that they might give him a tenth or a twentieth, as they pleased. Some indeed had pretended, while he was agent, that they from time immemorial had paid a modus or composition he smiled at that, and said he should be truly sorry to prove the contrary. 66 Come," said he to the richest of the tenants, whom he had always favoured most, "what have you paid me?" "Don't you remember, doctor, you never took more than forty-two shillings, saying that fortyfive was too much." "We must give and take," said the rector, "like good Christians. You shall pay me fortyeight for fourteen years, or during your residence and your son's, and here are two ten-pound banknotes." "A bargain!" exclaimed the farmer. The rest sent him chickens and ducks; and, finding him wary, said plainly, they did not see why one neighbour was more neighbour than another. He declared that he would encourage the civil and industrious; and he would see who was grateful before he carried his liberality much farther. They brought him their waste paper; such they called the old receipts; he altered (it was said) such figures as were changed the easiest, and laid them by. In the new agreements those who had large families paid less, those who had none or smaller paid more. Lord Sandyhurst, at the recommendation of his new steward, went over to the estate. The steward was of opinion that it could be doubled: the tenants were ejected. The good rector received them like a father, and consoled them. They lent him their teams, they sold him the manure, they would rather give it to him than leave it on the ground. The steward and a surveyor recommended an enclosure of the common and the warren. The doctor would not "Well, what have you done with him?" said his lordship: they shook their heads. The commissioners, who were neighbours, had left the tithes as they found them: Dr. Chisholm had consented to exchange a part of his glebe for only half the common, and that nuisance which in its present state brought so many foxes about it, the warren. "He must have seen your lordship's receipts and other papers." "Surely he was my steward you know." "He should not have taken advantage of his knowledge, if indeed he did; in other respects nobody could have acted more liberally. His warmest wish was the harmony of the parish." "A lawyer turned parson," cried Lord Sandyhurst, "has the devil by both horns, and can dance him about as he pleases: however I will eat him up with my game." 'My lord," said one of them, "I am sorry to inform you, he has a right of free warren, which is dependent on the warrener's house. He showed us the document." "I myself gave him with my own hands that long musty scroll about the warren, to prove the extent and show him his advantages. The rogue said my word was enough, and would hardly throw his eyes over the parchment: I observed that his horse was frightened at it, and went off at full speed." My father heard these particulars, and thanked God that his lordship had relieved him from such heart-burnings and such imputations. "A pretty thing to thank God for!" said Dr. Broom, "you might have netted a third of what Chisholm does, and have been deemed an honest man. You have now only your school and your five hundred." The school he had: the five hundred he never had. Dr. Broom, of his own accord, went to remind the peer that Mr. Normanby of the school had a small matter left by his lordship's worthy father. "He did say something about five hundred, but he was light-headed in a manner, as you must remember, Broom; and besides I gave Normanby the school. If he had not been the greatest booby in the universe, he might have been rector of Sandyhurst, and kept his carriage." |