Kitabı oku: «The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations», sayfa 14
CHAPTER XVI
EVANS. Peace your tattlings. What is fair, William?
WILLIAM. PULCHER.
QUICKLY. Poulcats! there are fairer things than poulcats sure!
EVANS. I pray you have your remembrance, child, accusative
HING HANG HOG.
QUICKLY. HANG HOG is Latin for bacon, I warrant you.
SHAKESPEARE.
In a large family it must often happen, that since every member of it cannot ride the same hobby, nor at the same time, their several steeds must sometimes run counter to each other; and so Ethel found it, one morning when Miss Winter, having a bad cold, had given her an unwonted holiday.
Mr. Wilmot had sent a large parcel of books for her to choose from for Cocksmoor, but this she could not well do without consultation. The multitude bewildered her, she was afraid of taking too many or too few, and the being brought to these practical details made her sensible that though her schemes were very grand and full for future doings, they passed very lightly over the intermediate ground. The Paulo post fulurum was a period much more developed in her imagination than the future, that the present was flowing into.
Where was her coadjutor, Richard? Writing notes for papa, and not to be disturbed. She had better have waited tranquilly, but this would not suit her impatience, and she ran up to Margaret’s room. There she found a great display of ivy leaves, which Norman, who had been turning half the shops in the town upside down in search of materials, was instructing her to imitate in leather-work—a regular mania with him, and apparently the same with Margaret.
In came Ethel. “Oh, Margaret, will you look at these ‘First Truths?’ Do you think they would be easy enough? Shall I take some of the Parables and Miracles at once, or content myself with the book about ‘Jane Sparks?’”
“There’s some very easy reading in ‘Jane Sparks’, isn’t there? I would not make the little books from the New Testament too common.”
“Take care, that leaf has five points,” said Norman.
“Shall I bring you up ‘Jane Sparks’ to see? Because then you can judge,” said Ethel.
“There, Norman, is that right?—what a beauty! I should like to look over them by-and-by, dear Ethel, very much.”
Ethel gazed and went away, more put out than was usual with her. “When Margaret has a new kind of fancy work,” she thought, “she cares for nothing else! as if my poor children did not signify more than trumpery leather leaves!” She next met Flora.
“Oh, Flora, see here, what a famous parcel of books Mr. Wilmot has sent us to choose from.”
“All those!” said Flora, turning them over as they lay heaped on the drawing-room sofa; “what a confusion!”
“See, such a parcel of reading books. I want to know what you think of setting them up with ‘Jane Sparks’, as it is week-day teaching.”
“You will be very tired of hearing those spelled over for ever; they have some nicer books at the national school.”
“What is the name of them? Do you see any of them here?”
“No, I don’t think I do, but I can’t wait to look now. I must write some letters. You had better put them together a little. If you were to sort them, you would know what is there. Now, what a mess they are in.”
Ethel could not deny it, and began to deal them out in piles, looking somewhat more fitting, but still felt neglected and aggrieved, at no one being at leisure but Harry, who was not likely to be of any use to her.
Presently she heard the study door open, and hoped; but though it was Richard who entered the room, he was followed by Tom, and each held various books that boded little good to her. Miss Winter had, much to her own satisfaction, been relieved from the charge of Tom, whose lessons Richard had taken upon himself; and thus Ethel had heard so little about them for a long time past, that even in her vexation and desire to have them over, she listened with interest, desirous to judge what sort of place Tom might be likely to take in school.
She did not perceive that this made Richard nervous and uneasy. He had a great dislike to spectators of Latin lessons; he never had forgotten an unlucky occasion, some years back, when his father was examining him in the Georgics, and he, dull by nature, and duller by confusion and timidity, had gone on rendering word for word—enim for, seges a crop, lini of mud, urit burns, campum the field, avenae a crop of pipe, urit burns it; when Norman and Ethel had first warned him of the beauty of his translation by an explosion of laughing, when his father had shut the book with a bounce, shaken his head in utter despair, and told him to give up all thoughts of doing anything—and when Margaret had cried with vexation. Since that time, he had never been happy when any one was in earshot of a lesson; but to-day he had no escape—Harry lay on the rug reading, and Ethel sat forlorn over her books on the sofa. Tom, however, was bright enough, declined his Greek nouns irreproachably, and construed his Latin so well, that Ethel could not help putting in a word or two of commendation, and auguring the third form. “Do let him off the parsing, Ritchie,” said she coaxingly—“he has said it so well, and I want you so much.”
“I am afraid I must not,” said Richard; who, to her surprise, did not look pleased or satisfied with the prosperous translation; “but come, Tom, you shan’t have many words, if you really know them.”
Tom twisted and looked rather cross, but when asked to parse the word viribus, answered readily and correctly.
“Very well, only two more—affuit?”
“Third person singular, praeter perfect tense of the verb affo, affis, affui, affere,” gabbled off Tom with such confidence, that though Ethel gave an indignant jump, Richard was almost startled into letting it pass, and disbelieving himself. He remonstrated in a somewhat hesitating voice. “Did you find that in the dictionary?” said he; “I thought affui came from adsum.”
“Oh, to be sure, stupid fool of a word, so it does!” said Tom hastily. “I had forgot—adsum, ades, affui, adesse.”
Richard said no more, but proposed the word oppositus.
“Adjective.”
Ethel was surprised, for she remembered that it was, in this passage, part of a passive verb, which Tom had construed correctly, “it was objected,” and she had thought this very creditable to him, whereas he now evidently took it for opposite; however, on Richard’s reading the line, he corrected himself and called it a participle, but did not commit himself further, till asked for its derivation.
“From oppositor.”
“Hallo!” cried Harry, who hitherto had been abstracted in his book, but now turned, raised himself on his elbow, and, at the blunder, shook his thick yellow locks, and showed his teeth like a young lion.
“No, now, Tom, pay attention,” said Richard resignedly. “If you found out its meaning, you must have seen its derivation.”
“Oppositus,” said Tom, twisting his fingers, and gazing first at Ethel, then at Harry, in hopes of being prompted, then at the ceiling and floor, the while he drawled out the word with a whine, “why, oppositus from op-posor.”
“A poser! ain’t it?” said Harry.
“Don’t, Harry, you distract him,” said Richard. “Come, Tom, say at once whether you know it or not—it is of no use to invent.”
“From op-” and a mumble.
“What? I don’t hear—op—”
Tom again looked for help to Harry, who made a mischievous movement of his lips, as if prompting, and, deceived by it, he said boldly, “From op-possum.”
“That’s right! let us hear him decline it!” cried Harry, in an ecstasy. “Oppossum, opottis, opposse, or oh-pottery!”
“Harry,” said Richard, in a gentle reasonable voice, “I wish you would be so kind as not to stay, if you cannot help distracting him.”
And Harry, who really had a tolerable share of forbearance and consideration, actually obeyed, contenting himself with tossing his book into the air and catching it again, while he paused at the door to give his last unsolicited assistance. “Decline oppossum you say. I’ll tell you how: O-possum re-poses up a gum tree. O-pot-you-I will, says the O-posse of Yankees, come out to ketch him. Opossum poses them and declines in O-pot-esse by any manner of means of o-potting-di-do-dum, was quite oppositum-oppotitu, in fact, quite contrairy.”
Richard, with the gravity of a victim, heard this sally of schoolboy wit, which threw Ethel back on the sofa in fits of laughing, and declaring that the Opossum declined, not that he was declined; but, in the midst of the disturbance thus created, Tom stepped up to her, and whispered, “Do tell me, Ethel!”
“Indeed I shan’t,” said she. “Why don’t you say fairly if you don’t know?”
He was obliged to confess his ignorance, and Richard made him conjugate the whole verb opponor from beginning to end, in which he wanted a good deal of help.
Ethel could not help saying, “How did you find out the meaning of that word, Tom, if you didn’t look out the verb?”
“I—don’t know,” drawled Tom, in the voice, half sullen, half piteous, which he always assumed when out of sorts.
“It is very odd,” she said decidedly; but Richard took no notice, and proceeded to the other lessons, which went off tolerably well, except the arithmetic, where there was some great misunderstanding, into which Ethel did not enter for some time. When she did attend, she perceived that Tom had brought a right answer, without understanding the working of the sum, and that Richard was putting him through it. She began to be worked into a state of dismay and indignation at Tom’s behaviour, and Richard’s calm indifference, which made her almost forget ‘Jane Sparks’, and long to be alone with Richard; but all the world kept coming into the room, and going out, and she could not say what was in her mind till after dinner, when, seeing Richard go up into Margaret’s room, she ran after him, and entering it, surprised Margaret, by not beginning on her books, but saying at once, “Ritchie, I wanted to speak to you about Tom. I am sure he shuffled about those lessons.”
“I am afraid he does,” said Richard, much concerned.
“What, do you mean that it is often so?”
“Much too often,” said Richard; “but I have never been able to detect him; he is very sharp, and has some underhand way of preparing his lessons that I cannot make out.”
“Did you know it, Margaret?” said Ethel, astonished not to see her sister looked shocked as well as sorry.
“Yes,” said Margaret, “Ritchie and I have often talked it over, and tried to think what was to be done.”
“Dear me! why don’t you tell papa? It is such a terrible thing!”
“So it is,” said Margaret, “but we have nothing positive or tangible to accuse Tom of; we don’t know what he does, and have never caught him out.”
“I am sure he must have found out the meaning of that oppositum in some wrong way—if he had looked it out, he would only have found opposite. Nothing but opponor could have shown him the rendering which he made.”
“That’s like what I have said almost every day,” said Richard, “but there we are—I can’t get any further.”
“Perhaps he guesses by the context,” said Margaret.
“It would be impossible to do so always,” said both the Latin scholars at once.
“Well, I can’t think how you can take it so quietly,” said Ethel. “I would have told papa the first moment, and put a stop to it. I have a great mind to do so, if you won’t.
“Ethel, Ethel, that would never do!” exclaimed Margaret, “pray don’t. Papa would be so dreadfully grieved and angry with poor Tom.”
“Well, so he deserves,” said Ethel.
“You don’t know what it is to see papa angry,” said Richard.
“Dear me, Richard!” cried Ethel, who thought she knew pretty well what his sharp words were. “I’m sure papa never was angry with me, without making me love him more, and, at least, want to be better.”
“You are a girl,” said Richard.
“You are higher spirited, and shake off things faster,” said Margaret.
“Why, what do you think he would do to Tom?”
“I think he would be so very angry, that Tom, who, you know, is timid and meek, would be dreadfully frightened,” said Richard.
“That’s just what he ought to be, frightened out of these tricks.”
“I am afraid it would frighten him into them still more,” said Richard, “and perhaps give him such a dread of my father as would prevent him from ever being open with him.”
“Besides, it would make papa so very unhappy,” added Margaret. “Of course, if poor dear Tom had been found out in any positive deceit, we ought to mention it at once, and let him be punished; but while it is all vague suspicion, and of what papa has such a horror of, it would only grieve him, and make him constantly anxious, without, perhaps, doing Tom any good.”
“I think all that is expediency,” said Ethel, in her bluff, abrupt way.
“Besides,” said Richard, “we have nothing positive to accuse him of, and if we had, it would be of no use. He will be at school in three weeks, and there he would be sure to shirk, even if he left it off here. Every one does, and thinks nothing of it.”
“Richard!” cried both sisters, shocked. “You never did?”
“No, we didn’t, but most others do, and not bad fellows either. It is not the way of boys to think much of those things.”
“It is mean—it is dishonourable—it is deceitful!” cried Ethel.
“I know it is very wrong, but you’ll never get the general run of boys to think so,” said Richard.
“Then Tom ought not to go to school at all till he is well armed against it,” said Ethel.
“That can’t be helped,” said Richard. “He will get clear of it in time, when he knows better.”
“I will talk to him,” said Margaret, “and, indeed, I think it would be better than worrying papa.”
“Well,” said Ethel, “of course I shan’t tell, because it is not my business, but I think papa ought to know everything about us, and I don’t like your keeping anything back. It is being almost as bad as Tom himself.”
With which words, as Flora entered, Ethel marched out of the room in displeasure, and went down, resolved to settle Jane Sparks by herself.
“Ethel is out of sorts to-day,” said Flora. “What’s the matter?”
“We have had a discussion,” said Margaret. “She has been terribly shocked by finding out what we have often thought about poor little Tom, and she thinks we ought to tell papa. Her principle is quite right, but I doubt—”
“I know exactly how Ethel would do it!” cried Flora; “blurt out all on a sudden, ‘Papa, Tom cheats at his lessons!’ then there would be a tremendous uproar, papa would scold Tom till he almost frightened him out of his wits, and then find out it was only suspicion.”
“And never have any comfort again,” said Margaret. “He would always dread that Tom was deceiving him, and then think it was all for want of—Oh, no, it will never do to speak of it, unless we find out some positive piece of misbehaviour.”
“Certainly,” said Flora.
“And it would do Tom no good to make him afraid of papa,” said Richard.
“Ethel’s rule is right in principle,” said Margaret thoughtfully, “that papa ought to know all without reserve, and yet it will hardly do in practice. One must use discretion, and not tease him about every little thing. He takes them so much to heart, that he would be almost distracted; and, with so much business abroad, I think at home he should have nothing but rest, and, as far as we can, freedom from care and worry. Anything wrong about the children brings on the grief so much, that I cannot bear to mention it.”
Richard and Flora agreed with her, admiring the spirit which made her, in her weakness and helplessness, bear the whole burden of family cares alone, and devote herself entirely to spare her father. He was, indeed, her first object, and she would have sacrificed anything to give him ease of mind; but, perhaps, she regarded him more as a charge of her own, than as, in very truth, the head of the family. She had the government in her hands, and had never been used to see him exercise it much in detail (she did not know how much her mother had referred to him in private), and had succeeded to her authority at a time when his health and spirits were in such a state as to make it doubly needful to spare him. It was no wonder that she sometimes carried her consideration beyond what was strictly right, and forgot that he was the real authority, more especially as his impulsive nature sometimes carried him away, and his sound judgment was not certain to come into play at the first moment, so that it required some moral courage to excite displeasure, so easy of manifestation; and of such courage there was, perhaps, a deficiency in her character. Nor had she yet detected her own satisfaction in being the first with every one in the family.
Ethel was put out, as Flora had discovered, and when she was downstairs she found it out, and accused herself of having been cross to Margaret, and unkind to Tom—of wishing to be a tell-tale. But still, though displeased with herself, she was dissatisfied with Margaret; it might be right, but it did not agree with her notions. She wanted to see every one uncompromising, as girls of fifteen generally do; she had an intense disgust and loathing of underhand ways, could not bear to think of Tom’s carrying them on, and going to a place of temptation with them uncorrected; and she looked up to her father with the reverence and enthusiasm of one like minded.
She was vexed on another score. Norman came home from Abbotstoke Grange without having seen Miss Rivers, but with a fresh basket of choice flowers, rapturous descriptions of Mr. Rivers’s prints, and a present of an engraving, in shading, such as to give the effect of a cast, of a very fine head of Alexander. Nothing was to be thought of but a frame for this—olive, bay, laurel, everything appropriate to the conqueror. Margaret and Norman were engrossed in the subject, and, to Ethel, who had no toleration for fancy work, who expected everything to be either useful or intellectual, this seemed very frivolous. She heard her father say how glad he was to see Norman interested and occupied, and certainly, though it was only in leather leaves, it was better than drooping and attending to nothing. She knew, too, that Margaret did it for his sake, but, said Ethel to herself, “It was very odd that people should find amusement in such things. Margaret always had a turn for them, but it was very strange in Norman.”
Then came the pang of finding out that this was aggravated by the neglect of herself; she called it all selfishness, and felt that she had had an uncomfortable, unsatisfactory day, with everything going wrong.
CHAPTER XVII
Gently supported by the ready aid
Of loving hands, whose little work of toil
Her grateful prodigality repaid
With all the benediction of her smile,
She turned her failing feet
To the softly cushioned seat,
Dispensing kindly greetings all the time.
R. M. MILNES.
Three great events signalised the month of January. The first was, the opening of the school at Cocksmoor, whither a cart transported half a dozen forms, various books, and three dozen plum-buns, Margaret’s contribution, in order that the school might begin with eclat. There walked Mr. Wilmot, Richard, and Flora, with Mary, in a jumping, capering state of delight, and Ethel, not knowing whether she rejoiced. She kept apart from the rest, and hardly spoke, for this long probation had impressed her with a sense of responsibility, and she knew that it was a great work to which she had set her hand—a work in which she must persevere, and in which she could not succeed in her own strength.
She took hold of Flora’s hand, and squeezed it hard, in a fit of shyness, when they came upon the hamlet, and saw the children watching for them; and when they reached the house, she would fain have shrank into nothing; there was a swelling of heart that seemed to overwhelm and stifle her, and the effect of which was to keep her standing unhelpful, when the others were busy bringing in the benches and settling the room.
It was a tidy room, but it seemed very small when they ranged the benches, and opened the door to the seven-and-twenty children, and the four or five women who stood waiting. Ethel felt some dismay when they all came pushing in, without order or civility, and would have been utterly at a loss what to do with her scholars now she had got them, if Richard and Flora had not marshalled them to the benches.
Rough heads, torn garments, staring vacant eyes, and mouths gaping in shy rudeness—it was a sight to disenchant her of visions of pleasure in the work she had set herself. It was well that she had not to take the initiative.
Mr. Wilmot said a few simple words to the mothers about the wish to teach their children what was right, and to do the best at present practicable; and then told the children that he hoped they would take pains to be good, and mind what they were taught. Then he desired all to kneel down; he said the Collect, “Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings,” and then the Lord’s Prayer.
Ethel felt as if she could bear it better, and was more up to the work after this. Next, the children were desired to stand round the room, and Mr. Wilmot tried who could say the Catechism—the two biggest, a boy and a girl, had not an idea of it, and the boy looked foolish, and grinned at being asked what was his name. One child was tolerably perfect, and about half a dozen had some dim notions. Three were entirely ignorant of the Lord’s Prayer, and many of the others did not by any means pronounce the words of it. Jane and Fanny Taylor, Rebekah Watts, and Mrs. Green’s little boy, were the only ones who, by their own account, used morning and evening prayers, though, on further examination, it appeared that Polly and Jenny Hall, and some others, were accustomed to repeat the old rhyme about “Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,” and Una M’Carthy and her little brother Fergus said something that nobody could make out, but which Mr. Wilmot thought had once been an “Ave Maria.”
Some few of the children could read, and several more knew their letters. The least ignorant were selected to form a first class, and Mr. Wilmot promised a Prayer-book to the first who should be able to repeat the Catechism without a mistake, and a Bible to the first who could read a chapter in it.
Then followed a setting of tasks, varying from a verse of a Psalm, or the first answer in the Catechism, down to the distinction between A, B, and C; all to be ready by next Tuesday, when, weather permitting, a second lesson was to be given. Afterwards, a piece of advice of Margaret’s was followed, and Flora read aloud to the assembly the story of “Margaret Fletcher.” To some this seemed to give great satisfaction, especially to Una, but Ethel was surprised to see that many, and those not only little ones, talked and yawned. They had no power of attention even to a story, and the stillness was irksome to such wild colts. It was plain that it was time to leave off, and there was no capacity there which did not find the conclusion agreeable, when the basket was opened, and Ethel and Mary distributed the buns, with instructions to say, “thank you.”
The next Tuesday, some of the lessons were learned, Una’s perfectly, the big ignorant boy came no more; and some of the children had learned to behave better, while others behaved worse; Ethel began to know what she was about; Richard’s gentleness was eminently successful with the little girls, impressing good manners on them in a marvellous way; and Mary’s importance and happiness with alphabet scholars, some bigger than herself, were edifying. Cocksmoor was fairly launched.
The next memorable day was that of Margaret’s being first carried downstairs. She had been willing to put it off as long as she could, dreading to witness the change below-stairs, and feeling, too, that in entering on the family room, without power of leaving it, she was losing all quiet and solitude, as well as giving up that monopoly of her father in his evenings, which had been her great privilege.
However, she tried to talk herself into liking it; and was rewarded by the happy commotion it caused, though Dr. May was in a state of excitement and nervousness at the prospect of seeing her on the stairs, and his attempts to conceal it only made it worse, till Margaret knew she should be nervous herself, and wished him out of sight and out of the house till it was over, for without him she had full confidence in the coolness and steadiness of Richard, and by him it was safely and quietly accomplished. She was landed on the sofa, Richard and Flora settling her, and the others crowding round and exclaiming, while the newness of the scene and the change gave her a sense of confusion, and she shut her eyes to recover her thoughts, but opened them the next instant at her father’s exclamation that she was overcome, smiled to reassure him, and declared herself not tired, and to be very glad to be among them again. But the bustle was oppressive, and her cheerful manner was an effort; she longed to see them all gone, and Flora found it out, sent the children for their walk, and carried off Ethel and the brothers.
Dr. May was called out of the room at the same time, and she was left alone. She gazed round her, at the room where, four months before, she had seen her mother with the babe in her arms, the children clustered round her, her father exulting in his hen-and-chicken daisies, herself full of bright undefined hope, radiant with health and activity, and her one trouble such that she now knew the force of her mother’s words, that it only proved her happiness. It was not till that moment that Margaret realised the change; found her eyes filling with tears, as she looked round, and saw the familiar furniture and ornaments.
They were instantly checked as she heard her father returning, but not so that he did not perceive them, and exclaim that it had been too much for her. “Oh, no—it was only the first time,” said Margaret, losing the sense of the painful vacancy in her absorbing desire not to distress her father, and thinking only of him as she watched him standing for some minutes leaning on the mantel-shelf with his hand shading his forehead.
She began to speak as soon as she thought he was ready to have his mind turned away: “How nicely Ritchie managed! He carried me so comfortably and easily. It is enough to spoil me to be so deftly waited on.”
“I’m glad of it,” said Dr. May; “I am sure the change is better for you;” but he came and looked at her still with great solicitude.
“Ritchie can take excellent care of me,” she continued, most anxious to divert his thoughts. “You see it will do very well indeed for you to take Harry to school.”
“I should like to do so. I should like to see his master, and to take Norman with me,” said the doctor. “It would be just the thing for him now—we would show him the dockyard, and all those matters, and such a thorough holiday would set him up again.”
“He is very much better.”
“Much better—he is recovering spirits and tone very fast. That leaf-work of yours came at a lucky time. I like to see him looking out for a curious fern in the hedgerows—the pursuit has quite brightened him up.”
“And he does it so thoroughly,” said Margaret. “Ethel fancies it is rather frivolous of him, I believe; but it amuses me to see how men give dignity to what women make trifling. He will know everything about the leaves, hunts up my botany books, and has taught me a hundred times more of the construction and wonders of them than I ever learned.”
“Ay,” said the doctor, “he has been talking a good deal to me about vegetable chemistry. He would make a good scientific botanist, if he were to be nothing else. I should be glad if he sticks to it as a pursuit—‘tis pretty work, and I should like to have gone further with it, if I had ever had time for it.”
“I dare say he will,” said Margaret. “It will be very pleasant if he can go with you. How he would enjoy the British Museum, if there was time for him to see it! Have you said anything to him yet?”
“No; I waited to see how you were, as it all depends on that.”
“I think it depends still more on something else; whether Norman is as fit to take care of you as Richard is.”
“That’s another point. There’s nothing but what he could manage now, but I don’t like saying anything to him. I know he would undertake anything I wished, without a word, and then, perhaps, dwell on it in fancy, and force himself, till it would turn to a perfect misery, and upset his nerves again. I’m sorry for it. I meant him to have followed my trade, but he’ll never do for that. However, he has wits enough to make himself what he pleases, and I dare say he will keep at the head of the school after all.”
“How very good he has been in refraining from restlessness!”
“It’s beautiful!” said Dr. May, with strong emotion. “Poor boy! I trust he’ll not be disappointed, and I don’t think he will; but I’ve promised him I won’t be annoyed if he should lose his place—so we must take especial care not to show any anxiety. However, for this matter, Margaret, I wish you would sound him, and see whether it would be more pleasure or pain. Only mind you don’t let him think that I shall be vexed, if he feels that he can’t make up his mind; I would not have him fancy that, for more than I can tell.”
This consultation revived the spirits of both; and the others returning, found Margaret quite disposed for companionship. If to her the evening was sad and strange, like a visit in a dream to some old familiar haunt, finding all unnatural, to the rest it was delightful. The room was no longer dreary, now that there was a centre for care and attentions, and the party was no longer broken up—the sense of comfort, cheerfulness, and home-gathering had returned, and the pleasant evening household gossip went round the table almost as it used to do. Dr. May resumed his old habit of skimming a club book, and imparting the cream to the listeners; and Flora gave them some music, a great treat to Margaret, who had long only heard its distant sounds.
Margaret found an opportunity of talking to Norman, and judged favourably. He was much pleased at the prospect of the journey, and of seeing a ship, so as to have a clearer notion of the scene where Harry’s life was to be spent, and though the charge of the arm was a drawback, he did not treat it as insurmountable.
