“I say, Master Stapleton, suppose we were to knock out half a port,” observed old Tom, after a silence of two minutes; “for the old gentleman blows a devil of a cloud: that is, if no one has an objection.” Stapleton gave a nod of , and I rose and put the upper window down a few inches. “Ay, that’s right, Jacob; now we shall see what Miss Mary and he are about. You’ve been enjoying the lady all to yourself, master,” continued Tom, addressing the Dominie.  
“Verily and truly,” replied the Dominie, “even as a second Jupiter.”
 
“Never heard of him.”
 
“I presume not; still, Jacob will tell thee that the history is to be found in Ovid’s Metamorphoses.”
 
“Never heard of the country, master.”
 
“, friend Dux, it is a book, not a country, in which thou may’st read how Jupiter at first unto Semele in a cloud.”
 
“And pray, where did he come from, master?”
 
“He came from heaven.”
 
“The devil he did. Well, if ever I gets there, I mean to stay.”
 
“It was love, all-powerful love, which induced him, ,” replied the Dominie, turning, with a smiling eye, to Mary.
 
“’Bove my comprehension altogether,” replied old Tom.
 
“Human natur’,” muttered Stapleton, with the pipe still between his lips.
 
“Not the first that have run in a fog,” observed young Tom.
 
“No, boy; but generally there ar’n’t much love between them at those times. But, come, now that we can breathe again, suppose I give you a song. What shall it be, young woman, a sea ditty, or something spooney?”
 
“Oh, something about love, if you’ve no objection, sir,” said Mary, appealing to the Dominie.
 
“Nay, it pleaseth me maiden, and I am of thy mind. Friend Dux, let it be Anacreontic.”
 
“What the devil’s that?” cried old Tom, lifting up his eyes, and taking the pipe out of his mouth.
 
“Nothing of your own, father, that’s clear; but something to borrow, for it’s to be on tick,” replied Tom.
 
“Nay, boy, I would have been understood that the song should refer to women or wine.”
 
“Both of which are to his fancy,” observed young Tom to me, aside.
 
“Human natur’,” observed Stapleton.
 
“Well, then, you shall have your wish. I’ll give you one that might be warbled in a lady’s without stirring the silk curtains:—
 
“Oh! the days are gone when beauty bright
 
    My heart’s chain wove,
 
When my dream of life from morn to night
 
    Was Love—still Love.
 
New hope may bloom, and days may come,
 
    Of milder, calmer beam,
 
But there’s nothing half so sweet in life
 
    As Love’s young dream;
 
Oh! there’s nothing half so sweet in life,
 
    As Love’s young dream.”
 
The melody of the song, added to the spirits he had drunk and Mary’s eyes beaming on him, had a great effect upon the Dominie. As old Tom warbled out, so did the gradually approach the chair of Mary; and as gradually entwine her waist with his own arm, his eyes twinkling brightly on her. Old Tom, who perceived it, had given me and Tom a , as he repeated the two last lines; and then we saw what was going on, we burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. “Boys! boys!” said the Dominie, starting up, “thou hast me, by thy mirth, from a sweet created by the harmony of friend Dux’s voice. Neither do I discover the source of thy cachinnation, seeing that the song is amatory and not comic. Still, it may not be supposed, at thy early age, that thou canst be with what thou art too young to feel. Pr’ythee continue, friend Dux, and, boys, restrain thy mirth.”
 
“Though the to a purer fame may soar
 
    When wild youth’s past,
 
Though he win the wise, who frowned before,
 
    To smile at last,
 
He’ll never meet a joy so sweet
 
    In all his noon of fame,
 
As when first he sung to woman’s ear
 
    His soul-felt flame;
 
And at every close she blush’d to hear
 
    The once-lov’d name.”
 
At the commencement of this verse the Dominie appeared to be on his guard; but gradually moved by the power of song, he dropped his elbow on the table, and his pipe it; his forehead sank into his broad palm, and he remained motionless. The verse ended, and the Dominie, forgetting all around him, softly ejaculated, without looking up, “Eheu! Mary.”
 
“Did you speak to me, sir?” said Mary, who, perceiving us tittering, addressed the Dominie with a half-serious, half-mocking air.
 
“Speak, maiden? nay, I not; yet thou mayest give me my pipe, which hath been while I was listening to the song.”
 
“Abducted! that’s a new word; but it means smashed into twenty pieces, I suppose,” observed young Tom. “At all events, your pipe is, for you let it fall between your legs.”
 
“Never mind,” said Mary, rising from her chair, and going to the cupboard; “here’s another, sir.”
 
“Well, master, am I to finish, or have you had enough of it?”
 
“Proceed, friend Dux, proceed; and believe that I am all attention.”
 
“Oh, that hallowed form is ne’er forgot
 
    Which first love trac’d,
 
Still it lingering haunts the greenest spot
 
    On memory’s waste.
 
’Twas odour fled as soon as shed,
 
    ’Twas memory’s winged dream,
 
’Twas a light that ne’er can shine again
 
    On life’s dull stream;
 
Oh, ’twas light that ne’er can shine again
 
    On life’s dull stream.”
 
“Nay,” said the Dominie, again abstracted, “the is not just. ‘Life’s dull stream.’ ‘Lethe tacitus amnis,’ as Lucan hath it; but the stream of life flows—ay, flows rapidly—even in my . Doth not the heart and beat—yea, strongly—peradventure too forcibly against my better ? ‘Confiteor misere molle cor esse mihi,’ as Ovid saith. Yet must it not prevail! Shall one girl be over seventy boys? Shall I, Dominie Dobbs, desert my post?—Again to—I will even depart, that I may be at my desk at matutinal hours.”
 
“You don’t mean to leave us, sir?” said Mary, taking the Dominie’s arm.
 
“Even so, fair maiden, for it waxeth late, and I have my duties to perform,” said the Dominie, rising from his chair.
 
“Then you will promise to come again.”
 
“Peradventure I may.”
 
“If you do not promise me that you will, I will not let you go now.”
 
“Verily, maiden—”
 
“Promise,” interrupted Mary.
 
“Truly, maiden—”
 
“Promise,” cried Mary.
 
“In good sooth, maiden—”
 
“Promise,” Mary, pulling the Dominie towards her chair.
 
“Nay, then, I do promise, since thou have it so,” replied the Dominie.
 
“And when will you come?”
 
“I will not tarry,” replied the Dominie; “and now good night to all.”
 
The Dominie shook hands with us, and Mary lighted him downstairs. I was much pleased with the resolution and sense of his danger thus shown by my preceptor, and hoped that he would have avoided Mary in future, who evidently wished to make a conquest of him for her own amusement and love of ; but still I felt that the promise exacted would be fulfilled, and I was afraid that a second meeting, and that perhaps not before witnesses, would prove . I made up my mind to speak to Mary on the subject as soon as I had an opportunity, and insist upon her not making a fool of the worthy old man. Mary remained below a much longer time than was necessary, and when she re-appeared and looked at me, as if for a smile of approval, I turned from her with a contemptuous air. She sat down, and looked confused. Tom was also silent, and paid her no attention. A quarter of an hour passed, when he proposed to his father that they should be off, and the party broke up. Leaving Mary silent and thoughtful, and old Stapleton finishing his pipe, I took my candle and went to bed.
 
The next day the moon changed, the weather changed, and a rapid took place. “It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good,” observed old Stapleton; “we watermen will have the river to ourselves again, and the hucksters must carry their gingerbread-nuts to another market.” It was, however, three or four days before the river was clear of the ice, so as to permit the navigation to proceed; ............