“I agree with you, sir; but what does Mrs Turnbull say now—has she come to her senses?”
“Pretty well, I expect, although she does not quite choose to acknowledge it. I have told her that she must with a carriage in future; and so she shall, till I think she deserves it. She knows that she must either have my company in the house, or none at all. She knows that the Peters of Petercumb Hall have cut her, for they did not answer a note of hers, sent by the gardener; and Mr Smith has written a very violent answer to another of her notes, wondering at her attempting to push herself into the company of the aristocracy. But what has brought her to her senses more than all is the affair of Monsieur Tagliabue. The , at my request, gave me the note of Lord Scrope, and I have taken good care that she could read the police report as well; but the fact is, she is so much that I say nothing to her. She has been following the advice of these French swindlers, who have led her wrong, to be able to cheat her of her money. I expect she will ask me to sell this place, and go elsewhere; but at present we hardly exchange a word during the whole day.”
“I feel very sorry for her, sir; for I really believe her to be a very good kind-hearted person.”
“That’s like you, Jacob—and so she is. At present she is in a state to be pitied. She would throw a share of the blame upon other people, and cannot—she feels it is all herself. All her bubbles of have burst, and she finds herself not half so respectable as she was before her vanity induced her to cut her former acquaintance, and try to get into the society of those who laughed at her, and at the same time were not half so creditable. But it’s that cursed money which has proved her unhappiness—and, I may add, mine.”
“Well, sir, I see no chance of its ever adding to my misfortunes, at all events.”
“Perhaps not, Jacob, even if you ever should get any; but, at all events, you may take a little to-morrow, if you please. I cannot ask you to dine here; it would not be pleasant to you, and show a want of feeling to my wife; but I should like you to come up with the wherry to-morrow, and we’ll take a cruise.”
“Very well, I shall be at your orders—at what time?”
“Say ten o’clock if the weather is fine; if not the next day.”
“Then, sir, I’ll now wish you good-bye, as I must go and see the Dominie.”
Mr Turnbull took my hand, and we parted. I was soon at Brentford, and was continuing my course through the long, main street, when I met Mr and Mrs Tomkins, the former head clerk who had charge of the Brentford . “I was intending to call upon you, sir, after I had paid a visit to my old master.”
“Very well, Jacob; and we dine at half-past three—fillet of and bacon—don’t be late for dinner.”
I promised that I would not, and in a few minutes more arrived at the Grammar School. I looked at its peaked, front, and called to mind my feelings when, years back, I had first entered its porch. What a difference between the little , ignorant, , tricked out like a harlequin, and now the tall, , well-dressed youth, happy in his independence, and conscious, although not vain, of his acquirements! and I mentally blessed the . But I had to talk to the Dominie, and to keep my appointment with the veal and bacon at half-past three, so I could not spare any time for . I, therefore, unfolded my arms, and making use of my legs, entered the wicket, and proceeded to the Dominie’s room. The door was ajar, and I entered without being perceived. I have often been reminded, by Flemish paintings which I have seen since, of the picture which then presented itself. The room was not large, but lofty. It had but one window, fitted with small diamond-shaped in heavy wood-work, through which poured a broad, but , stream of light. On one side of the window was an ancient armoire, containing the Dominie’s library, not and lettered but well thumbed and worn. On the other his huge chest of drawers, on which lay, ! for the benefit of the rising generations, a new birch rod, of large dimensions. The table was in the centre of the room, and the Dominie sat at it, with his back to the window, in a dressing-gown, once black, having been a cassock, but now brown with age. He was on his high and narrow-backed chair, leaning forwards, with both elbows on the table, his spectacles on his luxuriant nose, and his hands nearly meeting on the top of his bald crown, earnestly poring over the contents of a book. A large Bible, which he constantly made use of, was also on the table, and had been shoved from him to give place to the present object of his . His pipe lay on the floor in two pieces, having been thrown off without his perceiving it. On one side of him was a sheet of paper, on which he evidently had been writing extracts. I passed by him without his perceiving me, and gaining the back of his chair, looked over his shoulder. The work he was so intent upon was “Ovid’s Remedy of Love.”
It appeared that he had nearly finished reading through the whole, for in less than a minute he closed the book, and laying his spectacles down, threw himself back in his chair. “Strange,” soliloquised the Dominie; “Yet, verily, is some of his advice important, and I should imagine , yet I do not find my remedy therein. ‘Avoid idleness’—yes, that is counsel—and employment to one that hath not employed himself may drive away thought; but I have never been idle, and mine hath not been love in idleness; ‘Avoid her presence’—that I must do; yet doth she still present herself to mine imagination, and I doubt whether the reality could be more clearly perceptible. Even now doth she stand before me in all her beauty. ‘Read not Propertius and Tibullus’—that is easily refrained from; but read what I will, in a minute the type passeth from my eyes, and I see but her face beaming from the page. , cast my eyes in what direction I may wist, it is the same. If I looked at the stained wall, the indistinct lines gradually form themselves into her profile; if I look at the clouds, they will assume some of the outlines of her form; if I cast mine eyes upon the fire in the kitchen-grate, the coals will glow and cool until I see her face; nay, but yesterday, the shoulder of mutton upon the spit gyrated until it at last assumed the decapitated head of Mary. ‘Think of her faults and magnify them’—nay, that were unjust and unchristian. Let me rather correct mine own. I fear me that when Ovid wrote his picture he intended it for the use of young men, and not for an old fool like me. ! I have again broken my pipe—the fourth pipe that I have destroyed this week. What will the say? already hath she declared me demented, and God knows she is not very far from the truth;” and the Dominie covered up his face in his hands. I took this opportunity to step to the door, and appear to enter it, dropping the , and rousing the Dominie by the noise, who extended to me his hand. “Welcome, my son—welcome to thine old preceptor; and to the walls which first received thee, when thou wert cast on shore as a weed from the river. Sit, Jacob; I was thinking of thee and thine.”
“What, sir? of old Stapleton and his daughter, I suppose.”
“Even so; ye were all in my thoughts at the moment that thou madest thy appearance. They are well?”
“Yes, sir,” replied I. “I see but little of them; the old man is always smoking, and as for the girl—why, the less one sees of her the better, I should say.”
“Nay, Jacob, this is new to me; yet is she most pleasant.”
I knew the Dominie’s character, and that if anything could cure his unfortunate passion, it would be a supposition on his part that the girl was not correct. I at all events to her, as I knew that what I said would never be mentioned by him, and would therefore do her no harm. Still, I felt that I had to play a difficult game, as I was determined not to state what was not the fact. “Pleasant, sir; yes, pleasant to everybody; the fact is; I don’t like such girls as she is.”
“Indeed, Jacob; what, is she light?” I smiled and made no answer. “Yet I perceived it not,” replied the Dominie.
“She is just like her mother,” observed I.
“And what was her mother?”
I gave a brief account of her mother, and how she met her death in trying to escape from her husband. The Dominie . “Little skilled am I in women, Jacob, yet what thou sayest not only surpriseth but grieveth me. She is fair to look upon.”
“Handsome is that handsome does, sir. She’ll make many a man’s heart ache yet, I expect.”
“Indeed, Jacob. I am full of at what thou hast already told me.”
“I have seen more of her, sir.”
“I pray thee tell me more.”
“No, sir, I had rather not. You may imagine all you please.”
“Still she is young, Jacob; when she becometh a wife she might alter.”
“Sir, it is my firm opinion (and so it was), that if you were to marry her to-morrow, she would run away from you in a week.”
“Is that thy
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