Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 65, No. 400, February, 1849. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ formidable aspect. All these preliminaries settled, the last thing I heard Uncle Jack say, with a slap on my father's back, was, "Fame and fortune both made now! – you may go to sleep in safety, for you leave me wide awake. Jack Tibbets never sleeps!"

      I had thought it strange that, since my abrupt exodus from Trevanion's house, no notice had been taken of any of us by himself or Lady Ellinor. But on the very eve of our departure, came a kind note from Trevanion to me, dated from his favourite country seat, (accompanied by a present of some rare books to my father,) in which he said briefly that there had been illness in his family, which had obliged him to leave town for a change of air, but that Lady Ellinor expected to call on my mother the next week. He had found amongst his books some curious works of the Middle Ages, amongst others a complete set of Cardan, which he knew my father would like to have, and so sent them. There was no allusion to what had passed between us.

      In reply to this note, after due thanks on my father's part, who seized upon the Cardan (Lyons edition, 1663, ten volumes folio) as a silkworm does upon a mulberry leaf, I expressed our joint regrets that there was no hope of our seeing Lady Ellinor, as we were just leaving town. I should have added something on the loss my uncle had sustained, but my father thought that, since Roland shrank from any mention of his son, even by his nearest kindred, it would be his obvious wish not to parade his affliction beyond that circle.

      And there had been illness in Trevanion's family! On whom had it fallen? I could not rest satisfied with that general expression, and I took my answer myself to Trevanion's house, instead of sending it by the post. In reply to my inquiries, the porter said that all the family were expected at the end of the week; that he had heard both Lady Ellinor and Miss Trevanion had been rather poorly, but that they were now better. I left my note, with orders to forward it; and my wounds bled afresh as I came away.

      We had the whole coach to ourselves in our journey, and a silent journey it was, till we arrived at a little town about eight miles from my uncle's residence, to which we could only get through a cross-road. My uncle insisted on preceding us that night, and, though he had written, before we started, to announce our coming, he was fidgety lest the poor tower should not make the best figure it could; – so he went alone, and we took our ease at our inn.

      Betimes the next day we hired a fly-coach – for a chaise could never have held us and my father's books – and jogged through a labyrinth of villanous lanes, which no Marshal Wade had ever reformed from their primal chaos. But poor Mrs Primmins and the canary-bird alone seemed sensible of the jolts; the former, who sate opposite to us, wedged amidst a medley of packages, all marked "care, to be kept top uppermost," (why I know not, for they were but books, and whether they lay top or bottom it could not materially affect their value,) – the former, I say, contrived to extend her arms over those disjecta membra, and, griping a window-sill with the right hand, and a window-sill with the left, kept her seat rampant, like the split eagle of the Austrian Empire – in fact it would be well, now-a-days, if the split eagle were as firm as Mrs Primmins! As for the canary, it never failed to respond, by an astonished chirp, to every "Gracious me!" and "Lord save us!" which the delve into a rut, or the bump out of it, sent forth from Mrs Primmins's lips, with all the emphatic dolor of thἂe "Ἂῖ, ἂῖ" in a Greek chorus.

      But my father, with his broad hat over his brows, was in deep thought. The scenes of his youth were rising before him, and his memory went, smooth as a spirit's wing, over delve and bump. And my mother, who sat next him, had her arm on his shoulder, and was watching his face jealously. Did she think that, in that thoughtful face, there was regret for the old love? Blanche, who had been very sad, and had wept much and quietly since they put on her the mourning, and told her that she had no brother, (though she had no remembrance of the lost), began now to evince infantine curiosity and eagerness to catch the first peep of her father's beloved tower. And Blanche sat on my knee, and I shared her impatience. At last there came in view a church spire – a church – a plain square building near it, the parsonage, (my father's old home) – a long straggling street of cottages and rude shops, with a better kind of house here and there – and in the hinder ground, a gray deformed mass of wall and ruin, placed on one of those eminences on which the Danes loved to pitch camp or build fort, with one high, rude, Anglo-Norman tower rising from the midst. Few trees were round it, and those either poplars or firs, save, as we approached, one mighty oak – integral and unscathed. The road now wound behind the parsonage, and up a steep ascent. Such a road! – the whole parish ought to have been flogged for it! If I had sent up a road like that, even on a map, to Dr Herman, I should not have sat down in comfort for a week to come!

      The fly-coach came to a full stop.

      "Let us get out," cried I, opening the door and springing to the ground to set the example.

      Blanche followed, and my respected parents came next. But when Mrs Primmins was about to heave herself into movement,

      "Papæ!" said my father. "I think, Mrs Primmins, you must remain in, to keep the books steady."

      "Lord love you!" cried Mrs Primmins, aghast.

      "The subtraction of such a mass, or moles– supple and elastic as all flesh is, and fitting into the hard corners of the inert matter – such a subtraction, Mrs Primmins, would leave a vacuum which no natural system, certainly no artificial organisation, could sustain. There would be a regular dance of atoms, Mrs Primmins; my books would fly here, there, on the floor, out of the window!

      "Corporis officium est quoniam omnia deorsum."

      The business of a body like yours, Mrs Primmins, is to press all things down – to keep them tight, as you will know one of these days – that is, if you will do me the favour to read Lucretius, and master that material philosophy, of which I may say, without flattery, my dear Mrs Primmins, that you are a living illustration."

      These, the first words my father had spoken since we set out from the inn, seemed to assure my mother that she need have no apprehension as to the character of his thoughts, for her brow cleared, and she said, laughing,

      "Only look at poor Primmins, and then at that hill!"

      "You may subtract Primmins, if you will be answerable for the remnant, Kitty. Only, I warn you that it is against all the laws of physics."

      So saying, he sprang lightly forward, and, taking hold of my arm, paused and looked round, and drew the loud free breath with which we draw native air.

      "And yet," said my father, after that grateful and affectionate inspiration – "and yet, it must be owned, that a more ugly country one cannot see out of Cambridgeshire."5

      "Nay," said I, "it is bold and large, it has a beauty of its own. Those immense, undulating, uncultivated, treeless tracks have surely their charm of wildness and solitude! And how they suit the character of the ruin! All is feudal there: I understand Roland better now."

      "I hope in heaven Cardan will come to no harm!" cried my father; "he is very handsomely bound; and he fitted beautifully just into the fleshiest part of that fidgety Primmins."

      Blanche, meanwhile, had run far before us, and I followed fast. There were still the remains of that deep trench (surrounding the ruins on three sides, leaving a ragged hill-top at the fourth) which made the favourite fortification of all the Teutonic tribes. A causeway, raised on brick arches, now, however, supplied the place of the drawbridge, and the outer gate was but a mass of picturesque ruin. Entering into the courtyard or bailey, the old castle mound, from which justice had been dispensed, was in full view, rising higher than the broken walls around it, and partially overgrown with brambles. And there stood, comparatively whole, the tower or keep, and from its portals emerged the veteran owner.

      His ancestors might have received us in more state, but certainly they could not have СКАЧАТЬ