Kitabı oku: «The Heir of Redclyffe», sayfa 3
He did not so quickly become at home with the younger portion of the family, but his spirits rose every day. He whistled as he walked in the garden, and Bustle, instead of pacing soberly behind him, now capered, nibbled his pockets, and drew him into games of play which Charles and Amabel were charmed to overlook from the dressing-room window. There was Guy leaping, bounding, racing, rolling the dog over, tripping him up, twitching his ears, tickling his feet, catching at his tail, laughing at Bustle’s springs, contortions, and harmless open-mouthed attacks, while the dog did little less than laugh too, with his intelligent amber eyes, and black and red mouth. Charles began to find a new interest in his listless life in the attempt to draw Guy out, and make him give one of his merry laughs. In this, however, he failed when his wit consisted in allusions to the novels of the day, of which Guy knew nothing. One morning he underwent a regular examination, ending in—
‘Have you read anything?’
‘I am afraid I am very ignorant of modern books.’
‘Have you read the ancient ones?’ asked Laura.
‘I’ve had nothing else to read.’
‘Nothing to read but ancient books!’ exclaimed Amabel, with a mixture of pity and astonishment.
‘Sanchoniathon, Manetho, Berosus, and Ocellus Lucanus!’ said Guy, smiling.
‘There, Amy,’ said Charles, ‘if he has the Vicar of Wakefield among his ancient books, you need not pity him.’
‘It is like Philip,’ said Laura; ‘he was brought up on the old standard books, instead of his time being frittered away on the host of idle modern ones.’
‘He was free to concentrate his attention on Sir Charles Grandison,’ said Charles.
‘How could any one do so?’ said Guy. ‘How could any one have any sympathy with such a piece of self-satisfaction?’
‘Who could? Eh, Laura?’ said Charles.
‘I never read it,’ said Laura, suspecting malice.
‘What is your opinion of perfect heroes?’ continued Charles.
‘Here comes one,’ whispered Amy to her brother, blushing at her piece of naughtiness, as Philip Morville entered the room.
After the first greetings and inquiries after his sister, whom he had been visiting, Laura told him what they had been saying of the advantage of a scanty range of reading.
‘True,’ said Philip; ‘I have often been struck by finding how ignorant people are, even of Shakspeare; and I believe the blame chiefly rests on the cheap rubbish in which Charlie is nearly walled up there.’
‘Ay,’ said Charles, ‘and who haunts that rubbish at the beginning of every month? I suppose to act as pioneer, though whether any one but Laura heeds his warnings, remains to be proved.’
‘Laura does heed?’ asked Philip, well pleased.
‘I made her read me the part of Dombey that hurts women’s feelings most, just to see if she would go on—the part about little Paul—and I declare, I shall think the worse of her ever after—she was so stony hearted, that to this day she does not know whether he is dead or alive.’
‘I can’t quite say I don’t know whether he lived or died,’ said Laura, ‘for I found Amy in a state that alarmed me, crying in the green-house, and I was very glad to find it was nothing worse than little Paul.’
‘I wish you would have read it,’ said Amy; and looking shyly at Guy, she added—‘Won’t you?’
‘Well done, Amy!’ said Charles. ‘In the very face of the young man’s companion!’
‘Philip does not really think it wrong,’ said Amy.
‘No,’ said Philip; ‘those books open fields of thought, and as their principles are negative, they are not likely to hurt a person well armed with the truth.’
‘Meaning,’ said Charles, ‘that Guy and Laura have your gracious permission to read Dombey.’
‘When Laura has a cold or toothache.’
‘And I,’ said Guy.
‘I am not sure about, the expediency for you,’ said Philip ‘it would be a pity to begin with Dickens, when there is so much of a higher grade equally new to you. I suppose you do not understand Italian?’
‘No,’ said Guy, abruptly, and his dark eyebrows contracted.
Philip went on. ‘If you did, I should not recommend you the translation of “I promessi Sponsi,” one of the most beautiful books in any language. You have it in English, I think, Laura.’
Laura fetched it; Guy, with a constrained ‘thank you,’ was going to take it up rather as if he was putting a force upon himself, when Philip more quickly took the first volume, and eagerly turned over the pages—I can’t stand this,’ he said, ‘where is the original?’
It was soon produced; and Philip, finding the beautiful history of Fra Cristoforo, began to translate it fluently and with an admirable choice of language that silenced Charles’s attempts to interrupt and criticise. Soon Guy, who had at first lent only reluctant attention, was entirely absorbed, his eyebrows relaxed, a look of earnest interest succeeded, his countenance softened, and when Fra Cristoforo humbled himself, exchanged forgiveness, and received “il pane del perdono,” tears hung on his eyelashes.
The chapter was finished, and with a smothered exclamation of admiration, he joined the others in begging Philip to proceed. The story thus read was very unlike what it had been to Laura and Amy, when they puzzled it out as an Italian lesson, or to Charles, when he carelessly tossed over the translation in search of Don Abbondio’s humours; and thus between reading and conversation, the morning passed very agreeably.
At luncheon, Mr. Edmonstone asked Philip to come and spend a day or two at Hollywell, and he accepted the invitation for the next week. ‘I will make Thorndale drive me out if you will give him a dinner.’
‘Of course, of course,’ said Mr. Edmonstone, ‘we shall be delighted. We were talking of asking him, a day or two ago; eh, mamma?’
‘Thank you,’ said Philip; ‘a family party is an especial treat to him,’ laying a particular stress on the word ‘family party,’ and looking at his aunt.
At that moment the butler came in, saying, ‘Sir Guy’s servant is come, and has brought the horse, sir.’
‘Deloraine come!’ cried Guy, springing up. ‘Where?’
‘At the door, sir.’
Guy darted out, Mr. Edmonstone following. In another instant, however, Guy put his head into the room again. ‘Mrs. Edmonstone, won’t you come and see him? Philip, you have not seen Deloraine.’
Off he rushed, and the others were just in time to see the cordial look of honest gladness with which William, the groom, received his young master’s greeting, and the delighted recognition between Guy, Bustle, and Deloraine. Guy had no attention for anything else till he had heard how they had prospered on the journey; and then he turned to claim his friend’s admiration for the beautiful chestnut, his grandfather’s birthday present. The ladies admired with earnestness that compensated for want of knowledge, the gentlemen with greater science and discrimination; indeed, Philip, as a connoisseur, could not but, for the sake of his own reputation, discover something to criticise. Guy’s brows drew together again, and his eyes glanced as if he was much inclined to resent the remarks, as attacks at once on Deloraine and on his grandfather; but he said nothing, and presently went to the stable with Mr. Edmonstone, to see about the horse’s accommodations. Philip stood in the hall with the ladies.
‘So I perceive you have dropped the title already,’ observed he to Laura.
‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Edmonstone, replying for her daughter, ‘it seemed to give him pain by reminding him of his loss, and he was so strange and forlorn just at first, that we were glad to do what we could to make him feel himself more at home.’
‘Then you get on pretty well now?’
The reply was in chorus with variations—‘Oh, excellently!’
‘He is so entertaining,’ said Charlotte.
‘He sings so beautifully,’ said Amabel.
‘He is so right-minded,’ said Mrs. Edmonstone.
‘So very well informed,’ said Laura.
Then it all began again.
‘He plays chess so well,’ said Amy.
‘Bustle is such a dear dog,’ said Charlotte.
‘He is so attentive to Charlie,’ said Mrs. Edmonstone, going into the drawing-room to her son.
‘Papa says he will make up for the faults of all his ancestors,’ said Amabel.
‘His music! oh, his music!’ said Laura.
‘Philip,’ said Charlotte, earnestly, ‘you really should learn to like him.’
‘Learn, impertinent little puss?’ said Philip, smiling, ‘why should I not like him?’
‘I was sure you would try,’ said Charlotte, impressively.
‘Is it hard?’ said Amy. ‘But, oh, Philip! you could not help liking his singing.’
‘I never heard such a splendid voice,’ said Laura; ‘so clear and powerful, and yet so wonderfully sweet in the low soft notes. And a very fine ear: he has a real talent for music.’
‘Ah! inherited, poor fellow,’ said Philip, compassionately.
‘Do you pity him for it?’ said Amy, smiling.
‘Do you forget?’ said Philip. ‘I would not advise you to make much of this talent in public; it is too much a badge of his descent.’
‘Mamma did not think so,’ said Amy. ‘She thought it a pity he should not learn regularly, with such a talent; so the other day, when Mr. Radford was giving us a lesson, she asked Guy just to sing up and down the scale. I never saw anything so funny as old Mr Radford’s surprise, it was almost like the music lesson in “La Figlia del Reggimento”; he started, and looked at Guy, and seemed in a perfect transport, and now Guy is to take regular lessons.
‘Indeed.’
‘But do you really mean,’ said Laura, ‘that if your mother had been a musician’s daughter, and you had inherited her talent, that you would be ashamed of it.’
‘Indeed, Laura,’ said Philip, with a smile, ‘I am equally far from guessing what I should do if my mother had been anything but what she was, as from guessing what I should do if I had a talent for music.’
Mrs. Edmonstone here called her daughters to get ready for their walk, as she intended to go to East-hill, and they might as well walk with Philip as far as their roads lay together.
Philip and Laura walked on by themselves, a little in advance of the others. Laura was very anxious to arrive at a right understanding of her cousin’s opinion of Guy.
‘I am sure there is much to like in him,’ she said.
‘There is; but is it the highest praise to say there is much to like? People are not so cautious when they accept a man in toto.’
‘Then, do you not?’
Philip’s answer was—
‘He who the lion’s whelp has nurst,
At home with fostering hand,
Finds it a gentle thing at first,
Obedient to command,’
‘Do you think him a lion’s whelp?’
‘I am afraid I saw the lion just now in his flashing eyes and contracted brow. There is an impatience of advice, a vehemence of manner that I can hardly deem satisfactory. I do not speak from prejudice, for I think highly of his candour, warmth of heart, and desire to do right; but from all I have seen, I should not venture as yet to place much dependence on his steadiness of character or command of temper.’
‘He seems to have been very fond of his grandfather, in spite of his severity. He is but just beginning to brighten up a little.’
‘Yes; his disposition is very affectionate,—almost a misfortune to one so isolated from family ties. He showed remarkably well at Redclyffe, the other day; boyish of course, and without much self-command, but very amiably. It is very well for him that he is removed from thence, for all the people idolize him to such a degree that they could not fail to spoil him.’
‘It would be a great pity if he went wrong.’
‘Great, for he has many admirable qualities, but still they are just what persons are too apt to fancy compensation for faults. I never heard that any of his family, except perhaps that unhappy old Hugh, were deficient in frankness and generosity, and therefore these do not satisfy me. Observe, I am not condemning him; I wish to be perfectly just; all I say is, that I do not trust him till I have seen him tried.’
Laura did not answer, she was disappointed; yet there was a justice and guardedness in what Philip said, that made it impossible to gainsay it, and she was pleased with his confidence. She thought how cool and prudent he was, and how grieved she should be if Guy justified his doubts; and so they walked on in such silence as is perhaps the strongest proof of intimacy. She was the first to speak, led to do so by an expression of sadness about her cousin’s mouth. ‘What are you thinking of, Philip?’
‘Of Locksley Hall. There is nonsense, there is affectation in that, Laura, there is scarcely poetry, but there is power, for there is truth.’
‘Of Locksley Hall! I thought you were at Stylehurst.’
‘So I was, but the one brings the other.’
‘I suppose you went to Stylehurst while you were at St. Mildred’s? Did Margaret take you there?’
‘Margaret? Not she; she is too much engaged with her book-club, and her soirées, and her societies of every sort and kind.’
‘How did you get on with the Doctor?’
‘I saw as little of him as I could, and was still more convinced that he does not know what conversation is. Hem!’ Philip gave a deep sigh. ‘No; the only thing to be done at St. Mildred’s is to walk across the moors to Stylehurst. It is a strange thing to leave that tumult of gossip, and novelty, and hardness, and to enter on that quiet autumnal old world, with the yellow leaves floating silently down, just as they used to do, and the atmosphere of stillness round the green churchyard.’
‘Gossip!’ repeated Laura.’ Surely not with Margaret?’
‘Literary, scientific gossip is worse than gossip in a primary sense, without pretension.’
‘I am glad you had Stylehurst to go to. How was the old sexton’s wife?’
‘Very well; trotting about on her pattens as merrily as ever.’
‘Did you go into the garden?’
‘Yes; Fanny’s ivy has entirely covered the south wall, and the acacia is so tall and spreading, that I longed to have the pruning of it. Old Will keeps everything in its former state.’
They talked on of the old home, till the stern bitter look of regret and censure had faded from his brow, and given way to a softened melancholy expression.
CHAPTER 4
A fig for all dactyls, a fig for all spondees,
A fig for all dunces and dominie grandees.
—SCOTT
‘How glad I am!’ exclaimed Guy, entering the drawing-room.
‘Wherefore?’ inquired Charles.
‘I thought I was too late, and I am very glad to find no one arrived, and Mr. and Mrs. Edmonstone not come down.’
‘But where have you been?’
‘I lost my way on the top of the down; I fancied some one told me there was a view of the sea to be had there.’
‘And can’t you exist without a view of the sea?’
Guy laughed. ‘Everything looks so dull—it is as if the view was dead or imprisoned—walled up by wood and hill, and wanting that living ripple, heaving and struggling.’
‘And your fine rocks?’ said Laura.
‘I wish you could see the Shag stone,—a great island mass, sloping on one side, precipitous on the other, with the spray dashing on it. If you see it from ever so far off, there is still that white foam coming and going—a glancing speck, like the light in an eye.’
‘Hark! a carriage.’
‘The young man and the young man’s companion,’ said Charles.
‘How can you?’ said Laura. ‘What would any one suppose Mr. Thorndale to be?’
‘Not Philip’s valet,’ said Charles, ‘if it is true that no man is a hero to his “valley-de-sham”; whereas, what is not Philip to the Honourable James Thorndale?’
‘Philip, Alexander, and Bucephalus into the bargain,’ suggested Amy, in her demure, frightened whisper, sending all but Laura into a fit of laughter, the harder to check because the steps of the parties concerned were heard approaching.
Mr. Thorndale was a quiet individual, one of those of whom there is least to be said, so complete a gentleman that it would have been an insult, to call him gentleman-like; agreeable and clever rather than otherwise, good-looking, with a high-bred air about him, so that it always seemed strange that he did not make more impression.
A ring at the front-door almost immediately followed their arrival.
‘Encore?’ asked Philip, looking at Laura with a sort of displeased surprise.
‘Unfortunately, yes,’ said Laura, drawing aside.
‘One of my uncle’s family parties,’ said Philip. ‘I wish I had not brought Thorndale. Laura, what is to be done to prevent the tittering that always takes place when Amy and those Harpers are together?’
‘Some game?’ said Laura. He signed approval; but she had time to say no more, for her father and mother came down, and some more guests entered.
It was just such a party that continually grew up at Hollywell, for Mr. Edmonstone was so fond of inviting, that his wife never knew in the morning how many would assemble at her table in the evening. But she was used to it, and too good a manager even to be called so. She liked to see her husband enjoy himself in his good-natured, open-hearted way. The change was good for Charles, and thus it did very well, and there were few houses in the neighbourhood more popular than Hollywell.
The guests this evening were Maurice de Courcy, a wild young Irishman, all noise and nonsense, a great favourite with his cousin, Mr. Edmonstone; two Miss Harpers, daughters of the late clergyman, good-natured, second-rate girls; Dr. Mayerne, Charles’s kind old physician, the friend and much-loved counsellor at Hollywell, and the present vicar, Mr. Ross with his daughter Mary.
Mary Ross was the greatest friend that the Miss Edmonstones possessed, though, she being five-and-twenty, they had not arrived at perceiving that they were on the equal terms of youngladyhood.
She had lost her mother early, and had owed a great deal to the kindness of Mrs. Edmonstone, as she grew up among her numerous elder brothers. She had no girlhood; she was a boy till fourteen, and then a woman, and she was scarcely altered since the epoch of that transition, the same in likings, tastes, and duties. ‘Papa’ was all the world to her, and pleasing him had much the same meaning now as then; her brothers were like playfellows; her delights were still a lesson in Greek from papa, a school-children’s feast, a game at play, a new book. It was only a pity other people did not stand still too. ‘Papa,’ indeed, had never grown sensibly older since the year of her mother’s death: but her brothers were whiskered men, with all the cares of the world, and no holidays; the school-girls went out to service, and were as a last year’s brood to an old hen; the very children she had fondled were young ladies, as old, to all intents and purposes, as herself, and here were even Laura and Amy Edmonstone fallen into that bad habit of growing up! though little Amy had still much of the kitten in her composition, and could play as well as Charlotte or Mary herself, when they had the garden to themselves.
Mary took great pains to amuse Charles, always walking to see him in the worst weather, when she thought other visitors likely to fall, and chatting with him as if she was the idlest person in the world, though the quantity she did at home and in the parish would be too amazing to be recorded. Spirited and decided, without superfluous fears and fineries, she had a firm, robust figure, and a rosy, good-natured face, with a manner that, though perfectly feminine, had in it an air of strength and determination.
Hollywell was a hamlet, two miles from the parish church of East-hill, and Mary had thus seen very little of the Edmonstone’s guest, having only been introduced to him after church on Sunday. The pleasure on which Charles chiefly reckoned for that evening was the talking him over with her when the ladies came in from the dining-room. The Miss Harpers, with his sisters, gathered round the piano, and Mrs. Edmonstone sat at Charles’s feet, while Mary knitted and talked.
‘So you get on well with him?’
‘He is one of those people who are never in the way, and yet you never can forgot their presence,’ said Mrs. Edmonstone.
‘His manners are quite the pink of courtesy,’ said Mary.
‘Like his grandfather’s,’ said Mrs. Edmonstone; ‘that old-school deference and attention is very chivalrous, and sits prettily and quaintly on his high spirits and animation; I hope it will not wear off.’
‘A vain hope,’ said Charles. ‘At present he is like that German myth, Kaspar Hauser, who lived till twenty in a cellar. It is lucky for mamma that, in his green state, he is courtly instead of bearish.’
‘Lucky for you, too, Charlie; he spoils you finely.’
‘He has the rare perfection of letting me know my own mind. I never knew what it was to have my own way before.’
‘Is that your complaint, Charlie? What next?’ said Mary.
‘So you think I have my way, do you, Mary? That is all envy, you see, and very much misplaced. Could you guess what a conflict it is every time I am helped up that mountain of a staircase, or the slope of my sofa is altered? Last time Philip stayed here, every step cost an argument, till at last, through sheer exhaustion, I left myself a dead weight on his hands, to be carried up by main strength. And after all, he is such a great, strong fellow, that I am afraid he did not mind it; so next time I crutched myself down alone, and I hope that did provoke him.’
‘Sir Guy is so kind that I am ashamed,’ said Mrs. Edmonstone. ‘It seems as if we had brought him for the sole purpose of waiting on Charles.’
‘Half his heart is in his horse,’ said Charles. ‘Never had man such delight in the “brute creation.”’
‘They have been his chief playfellows,’ said Mrs. Edmonstone. ‘The chief of his time was spent in wandering in the woods or on the beach, watching them and their ways.’
‘I fairly dreamt of that Elysium of his last night,’ said Charles: ‘a swamp half frozen on a winter’s night, full of wild ducks. Here, Charlotte, come and tell Mary the roll of Guy’s pets.’
Charlotte began. ‘There was the sea-gull, and the hedgehog, and the fox, and the badger, and the jay, and the monkey, that he bought because it was dying, and cured it, only it died the next winter, and a toad, and a raven, and a squirrel, and—’
‘That will do, Charlotte.’
‘Oh! but Mary has not heard the names of all his dogs. And Mary, he has cured Bustle of hunting my Puss. We held them up to each other, and Puss hissed horribly, but Bustle did not mind it a bit; and the other day, when Charles tried to set him at her, he would not take the least notice.’
‘Now, Charlotte,’ said Charles, waving his hand, with a provoking mock politeness, ‘have the goodness to return to your friends.
Tea over, Laura proposed the game of definitions. ‘You know it. Philip,’ said she, ‘you taught us.’
‘Yes I learnt it of your sisters, Thorndale,’ said Philip.
‘O pray let us have it. It must be charming!’ exclaimed Miss Harper, on this recommendation.
‘Definitions!’ said Charles, contemptuously. ‘Dr. Johnson must be the hand for them.’
‘They are just the definitions not to be found in Johnson,’ said Mr. Thorndale. ‘Our standing specimen is adversity, which may be differently explained according to your taste, as “a toad with a precious jewel in its head,” or “the test of friendship.”’
‘The spirit of words,’ said Guy, looking eager and interested.
‘Well, we’ll try,’ said Charles, ‘though I can’t say it sounds to me promising. Come, Maurice, define an Irishman.’
‘No, no, don’t let us be personal,’ said Laura; ‘I had thought of the word “happiness”. We are each to write a definition on a slip of paper, then compare them.’
The game was carried on with great spirit for more than an hour. It was hard to say, which made most fun, Maurice, Charles, or Guy; the last no longer a spectator, but an active contributor to the sport. When the break-up came, Mary and Amabel were standing over the table together, collecting the scattered papers, and observing that it had been very good fun. ‘Some so characteristic,’ said Amy, ‘such as Maurice’s definition of happiness,—a row at Dublin.’
‘Some were very deep, though,’ said Mary; ‘if it is not treason, I should like to make out whose that other was of happiness.’
‘You mean this,’ said Amy: ‘“Gleams from a brighter world, too soon eclipsed or forfeited.” I thought it was Philip’s, but it is Sir Guy’s writing. How very sad! I should not like to think so. And he was so merry all the time! This is his, too, I see; this one about riches being the freight for which the traveller is responsible.’
‘There is a great deal of character in them,’ said Mary. ‘I should not have wondered at any of us, penniless people, philosophizing in the fox and grapes style, but, for him, and at his age—’
‘He has been brought up so as to make the theory of wisdom come early,’ said Philip, who was nearer than she thought.
‘Is that intended for disparagement?’ she asked quickly.
I think very highly of him; he has a great deal of sense and right feeling,’ was Philip’s sedate answer; and he turned away to say some last words to Mr. Thorndale.
The Rosses were the last to depart, Mary in cloak and clogs, while Mr. Edmonstone lamented that it was in vain to offer the carriage; and Mary laughed, and thanked, and said the walk home with Papa was the greatest of treats in the frost and star-light.
‘Don’t I pity you, who always go out to dinner in a carriage!’ were her last words to Laura.
‘Well, Guy,’ said Charlotte, ‘how do you like it?’
‘Very much, indeed. It was very pleasant.’
‘You are getting into the fairy ring,’ said Laura, smiling.
‘Ay’ he said, smiling too; ‘but it does not turn to tinsel. Would it if I saw more of it?’ and he looked at Mrs. Edmonstone.
‘It would be no compliment to ourselves to say so,’ she answered.
‘I suppose tinsel or gold depends on the using,’ said he, thoughtfully; ‘there are some lumps of solid gold among those papers, I am sure, one, in particular, about a trifle. May I see that again? I mean—
‘Little things
On little wings
Bear little souls to heaven.’
‘Oh! that was only a quotation,’ said Amy, turning over the definitions again with him, and laughing at some of the most amusing; while, in the mean time, Philip went to help Laura, who was putting some books away in the ante-room.
‘Yes, Laura,’ he said, ‘he has thought, mind, and soul; he is no mere rattle.’
‘No indeed. Who could help seeing his superiority over Maurice?’
‘If only he does not pervert his gifts, and if it is not all talk. I don’t like such excess of openness about his feelings; it is too like talking for talking’s sake.’
‘Mamma says it in the transparency of youthfulness. You know he has never been at school; so his thoughts come out in security of sympathy, without fear of being laughed at. But it is very late. Good night.’
The frost turned to rain the next morning, and the torrents streamed against the window, seeming to have a kind of attraction for Philip and Guy, who stood watching them.
Guy wondered if the floods would be out at Redclyffe and his cousins were interested by his description of the sudden, angry rush of the mountain streams, eddying fiercely along, bearing with them tree and rock, while the valleys became lakes, and the little mounds islets; and the trees looked strangely out of proportion when only their branches were visible. ‘Oh! a great flood is famous fun,’ said he.
‘Surely,’ said Philip, ‘I have heard a legend of your being nearly drowned in some flood.
‘Yes,’ said Guy, ‘I had a tolerable ducking.’
‘Oh, tell us about it!’ said Amy.
‘Ay! I have a curiosity to hear a personal experience of drowning,’ said Charles. ‘Come, begin at the beginning.’
‘I was standing watching the tremendous force of the stream, when I saw an unhappy old ram floating along, bleating so piteously, and making such absurd, helpless struggles, that I could not help pulling off my coat and jumping in after him. It was very foolish, for the stream was too strong—I was two years younger then. Moreover, the beast was very heavy, and not at all grateful for any kind intentions, and I found myself sailing off to the sea, with the prospect of a good many rocks before long; but just then an old tree stretched out its friendly arms through the water; it stopped the sheep, and I caught hold of the branches, and managed to scramble up, while my friend got entangled in them with his wool’—
‘Omne quum Proteus pecus egit altos
Visere montes,’
quoted Philip.
‘Ovium et summa, genus haesit ulmo,’
added Guy.
‘Ovium,’ exclaimed Philip, with a face of horror. ‘Don’t you know that O in Ovis is short? Do anything but take liberties with Horace!’
‘Get out of the tree first, Guy,’ said Charles, ‘for at present your history seems likely to end with a long ohone!’
‘Well, Triton—not Proteus—came to the rescue at last,’ said Guy, laughing; ‘I could not stir, and the tree bent so frightfully with the current that I expected every minute we should all go together; so I had nothing for it but to halloo as loud as I could. No one heard but Triton, the old Newfoundland dog, who presently came swimming up, so eager to help, poor fellow, that I thought he would have throttled me, or hurt himself in the branches. I took off my handkerchief and threw it to him, telling him to take it to Arnaud, who I knew would understand it as a signal of distress.’
‘Did he? How long had you to wait?’
‘I don’t know—it seemed long enough before a most welcome boat appeared, with some men in it, and Triton in an agony. They would never have found me but for him, for my voice was gone; indeed the next thing I remember was lying on the grass in the park, and Markham saying, ‘Well, sir, if you do wish to throw away your life, let it be for something better worth saving than Farmer Holt’s vicious old ram!’
‘In the language of the great Mr. Toots,’ said Charles ‘I am afraid you got very wet.’
‘Were you the worse for it?’ said Amy.
‘Not in the least. I was so glad to hear it was Holt’s! for you must know that I had behaved very ill to Farmer Holt. I had been very angry at his beating our old hound, for, as he thought, worrying his sheep; not that Dart ever did, though.
‘And was the ram saved?’
‘Yes, and next time I saw it, it nearly knocked me down.’
‘Would you do it again?’ said Philip.
‘I don’t know.’
