Sir Brook Fossbrooke, Volume I.. Lever Charles James

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СКАЧАТЬ wanted him this evening.”

      “I’ll go, Miss Lucy, resarving the point, as they say in the law, – resarving the point! because I don’t give in that what you’re doin’ is right; and when the master comes home, I’m not goin’ to defend it.”

      “We must bear up under that calamity as well as we can,” said the young man, insolently; but Nicholas never looked towards or seemed to hear him.

      “A barn-a-brack is better than a spongecake, because if there ‘s some of it left it does n’t get stale, and one-and-six-pence will be enough; and I suppose you don’t need a lamp?”

      “Well, Nicholas, I must say, I think it would be better; and two candles on the small table, and two on the piano.”

      “Why don’t you mentiou a fiddler?” said he, bitterly. “If it’s a ball, there ought to be music?”

      Unable to control himself longer, young Lendrick wrenched open the sash-door, and walked out into the lawn.

      “The devil such a family for temper from this to Bantry!” said Nicholas; “and here’s the company comin’ already, or I ‘m mistaken. There ‘s a boat makin’ for the landing-place with two men in the stern.”

      Lucy implored him once more to lose no time on his errand, and hastened away to make some change in her dress to receive the strangers. Meanwhile Tom, having seen the boat, walked down to the shore to meet his friends.

      Both Sir Brook and Trafford were enthusiastic in their praises of the spot. Its natural beauty was indeed great, but taste and culture had rendered it a marvel of elegance and refinement. Not merely were the trees grouped with reference to foliage and tint, but the flower-beds were so arranged that the laws of color should be respected, and thus these plats of perfume were not less luxuriously rich in odor than they were captivating as pictures.

      “It is all the governor’s own doing,” said Tom, proudly, “and he is continually changing the disposition of the plants. He says variety is a law of the natural world, and it is our duty to imitate it. Here comes my sister, gentlemen.”

      As though set in a beautiful frame, the lovely girl stood for an instant in the porch, where drooping honeysuckles and the tangled branches of a vine hung around her, and then came courteously to meet and welcome them.

      “I am in ecstasy with all I see here, Miss Lendrick,” said Sir Brook. “Old traveller that I am, I scarcely know where I have ever seen such a combination of beauty.”

      “Papa will be delighted to hear this,” said she, with a pleasant smile; “it is the flattery he loves best.”

      “I ‘m always saying we could keep up a salmon-weir on the river for a tithe of what these carnations and primroses cost us,” said Tom.

      “Why, sir, if you had been in Eden you ‘d have made it a market garden,” said the old man.

      “If the governor was a Duke of Devonshire, all these-caprices might be pardonable; but my theory is, roast-beef before roses.”

      While young Lendrick attached himself to Trafford, and took him here and there to show him the grounds, Sir Brook walked beside Lucy, who did the honors of the place with a most charming courtesy.

      “I am almost ashamed, sir,” said she, as they turned towards the house, “to have asked you to see such humble objects as these to which we attach value, for my brother tells me you are a great traveller; but it is just possible you have met in your journeys others who, like us, lived so much out of the world that they fancied they had the prettiest spot in it for their own.”

      “You must not ask me what I think of all I have seen: here, Miss Lendrick, till my enthusiasm calms down;” and his look of admiration, so palpably addressed to herself, sent a flush to her cheek. “A man’s belongings are his history,” said Sir Brook, quickly turning the conversation into an easier channel: “show me his study, his stable, his garden; let me see his hat, his cane, the volume he thrusts into his pocket, and I ‘ll make you an indifferent good guess about his daily doings.”

      “Tell me of papa’s. Come here, Tom,” cried she, as the two young men came towards her, “and listen to a bit of divination.”

      “Nay, I never promised a lecture. I offered a confidence,” said he, in a half whisper; but she went on: “Sir Brook says that he reads people pretty much as Cuvier pronounced on a mastodon, by some small minute detail that pertained to them. Here’s Tom’s cigar-case,” said she, taking it from his pocket; “what do you infer from that, sir?”

      “That he smokes the most execrable tobacco.”

      “But can you say why?” asked Tom, with a sly twinkle of his eye.

      “Probably for the same reason I do myself,” said Sir Brook, producing a very cheap cigar.

      “Oh, that’s a veritable Cuban compared to one of mine,” cried Tom; “and by way of making my future life miserable, here has been Mr. Trafford filling my pocket with real havannahs, giving me a taste for luxuries I ought never to have known of.”

      “Know everything, sir, go everywhere, see all that the world can show you; the wider a man’s experiences the larger his nature and the more open his heart,” said Foss-brooke, boldly.

      “I like the theory,” said Trafford to Miss Lendrick; “do you?”

      “Sir Brook never meant it for women, I fancy,” said she, in a low tone; but the old man overheard her, and said: “You are right. The guide ought to know every part of the mountain; the traveller need only know the path.”

      “Here comes a guide who is satisfied with very short excursions,” cried Tom, laughing; “this is our parson, Dr. Mills.”

      The little, mellow-looking, well-cared-for person who now joined them was a perfect type of old-bachelorhood, in its aspect of not unpleasant selfishness. Everything about him was neat, orderly, and appropriate; and though you saw at a glance it was all for himself and his own enjoyment it was provided, his good manners and courtesy were ever ready to extend its benefits to others; and a certain genial look he wore, and a manner that nature had gifted him with, did him right good service in life, and made him pass for “an excellent fellow, though not much of a parson.”

      He was of use now, if only that by his presence Lucy felt more at ease, not to say that his violoncello, which always remained at the Nest, made a pleasant accompaniment when she played, and that he sang with much taste some of those lyrics which arc as much linked to Ireland by poetry as by music.

      “I wish he was our chaplain, – by Jove I do!” whispered Trafford to Lendrick; “he’s the jolliest fellow of his cloth I have ever met.”

      “And such a cook,” muttered the other.

      “A cook!”

      “Ay, a cook. I ‘ll make him ask us to dinner, and you ‘ll tell me if you ever ate fish as he gives it, or tasted macaroni as dressed by him. I have a salmon for you, doctor, a ten-pound fish. I wish it were bigger! but it is in splendid order.”

      “Did you set it?” asked the parson, eagerly.

      “What does he mean by set it?” whispered Trafford.

      “Setting means plunging it in very hot water soon after killing it, to preserve and harden the ‘curd.’ Yes; and I took your hint СКАЧАТЬ