The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly. Lever Charles James

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СКАЧАТЬ forget how it goes. Indeed, some verses I was making on the curate’s sister have driven the others out of my head.”

      Jack drew nigh, and leaning over his shoulder, whispered something in his ear.

      “What!” cried Cutbill, starting up; “he says he’ll pitch me neck and crop out of the window.”

      “Not unless you deserve it – add that,” said Jack, sternly.

      “I must have an apology for those words, sir. I shall insist on your recalling them, and expressing your sincere regret for having ever used them.”

      “So you shall, Cutty. I completely forgot that this tower was ninety feet high; but I ‘ll pitch you downstairs, which will do as well.”

      There was a terrible gleam of earnestness in Jack’s eye as he spoke this laughingly, which appalled Cutbill far more than any bluster, and he stammered out, “Let us have no practical jokes; they’re bad taste. You’d be a great fool, admiral” – this was a familiarity he occasionally used with Jack – “you ‘d be a great fool to quarrel with me. I can do more with the fellows at Somerset House than most men going; and when the day comes that they ‘ll give you a command, and you ‘ll want twelve or fifteen hundred to set you afloat, Tom Cutbill is not the worst man to know in the City. Not to say, that if things go right down here, I could help you to something very snug in our mine. Won’t we come out strong then, eh?”

      Here he rattled over the keys once more; and after humming to himself for a second or two, burst out with a rattling merry air, to which he sung, —

      “With crests on our harness and breechin,

      In a carriage and four we shall roll,

      With a splendid French cook in the kitchen,

      If we only succeed to find coal,

      Coal!

      If we only are sure to find coal.”

      “A barcarolle, I declare,” said Lord Culduff, entering. “It was a good inspiration led me up here.”

      A jolly roar of laughter at his mistake welcomed him; and Cutty, with an aside, cried out, “He’s deaf as a post,” and continued, —

      “If we marry, we ‘ll marry a beauty,

      If single we ‘ll try and control

      Our tastes within limits of duty,

      And make ourselves jolly with coal,

      Coal!

      And make ourselves jolly with coal.

      “They may talk of the mines of Golcondar,

      Or the shafts of Puebla del Sol;

      But to fill a man’s pocket, I wonder

      If there’s anything equal to coal,

      Coal!

      If there ‘s anything equal to coal.

      “At Naples we ‘ll live on the Chiaja,

      With our schooner-yacht close to the Mole,

      And make daily picknickings to Baja,

      If we only come down upon coal,

      Coal!

      If we only come down upon coal.”

      “One of the fishermen’s songs,” said Lord Culduff, as he beat time on the table. “I ‘ve passed many a night on the Bay of Naples listening to them.”

      And a wild tumultuous laugh now convulsed the company, and Cutbill, himself overwhelmed by the absurdity, rushed to the door, and made his escape without waiting for more.

      CHAPTER XIII. AT THE COTTAGE

      Julia L’Estrange was busily engaged in arranging some flowers in certain vases in her little drawing-room, and, with a taste all her own, draping a small hanging lamp with creepers, when Jack Bramleigh appeared at the open window, and leaning on the sill, cried out, “Good-morning.”

      “I came over to scold you, Julia,” said he. “It was very cruel of you to desert us last evening, and we had a most dreary time of it in consequence.”

      “Come round and hold this chair for me, and don’t talk nonsense.”

      “And what are all these fine preparations for? You are decking out your room as if for a village fête,” said he, not moving from his place nor heeding her request.

      “I fancy that young Frenchman who was here last night,” said she, saucily, “would have responded to my invitation if I had asked him to hold the chair I was standing on.”

      “I’ve no doubt of it,” said he, gravely. “Frenchmen are vastly more gallant than we are.”

      “Do you know, Jack,” said she again, “he is most amusing?”

      “Very probably.”

      “And has such a perfect accent; that sort of purring French one only hears from a Parisian?”

      “I am charmed to hear it.”

      “It charmed me to hear it, I assure you. One does so long for the sounds that recall bright scenes and pleasant people: one has such a zest for the most commonplace things that bring back the memory of very happy days.”

      “What a lucky Frenchman to do all this!”

      “What a lucky Irish girl to have met with him!” said she, gayly.

      “And how did you come to know him, may I ask?”

      “George had been several times over to inquire after him, and out of gratitude Count Pracontal, – I am not sure that he is count though, but it is of no moment, – made it a point to come here the first day he was able to drive out. Mr. Longworth drove him over in his pony carriage, and George was so pleased with them both that he asked them to tea last evening, and they dine here to-day.”

      “Hence these decorations?”

      “Precisely.”

      “What a brilliant neighborhood we have! And there are people will tell you that this is all barbarism here.”

      “Come over this evening, Jack, and hear M. Pracontal sing – he has a delicious tenor voice – and you ‘ll never believe in that story of barbarism again. We had quite a little ‘salon’ last night.”

      “I must take your word for his attractive qualities,” said Jack, as his brow contracted and his face grew darker. “I thought your brother rather stood aloof from Mr. Longworth. I was scarcely prepared to hear of his inviting him here.”

      “So he did; but he found him so different from what he expected – so quiet, so well-bred, that George, who always is in a hurry to make an ‘amende’ when he thinks he has wronged any one, actually rushed into acquaintance with him at once.”

      “And his sister Julia,” asked Jack, with a look of impertinent irony, “was she, too, as impulsive in her friendship?”

      “I think pretty much the same.”

      “It must have been a charming party.”

      “I flatter myself it was. They stayed till midnight; and M. Pracontal declared he’d break СКАЧАТЬ