Chapter VI: Part 6

The little cousins, Geordie, Johnny, and Jessie, entered instantly into a clattering of friendly recognizances; and the two mothers bustled forward to chairs alongside of their sister, the lady of the house, whose colour had come and gone twenty times, and all power of speech had been taken away from her by a discovery as sudden as it was unpleasant. Yet what was to be done? Was the aristocratic Grizelda to sit and see tea filled out for the wives and weans of a dresser of yarns, and an artificer of garments? Was the honour of the Geddeses of Cauldshouthers to be scuttled by a needle and a hackle-tooth? But matters were not destined to remain even upon the poise of these pivots. The little nephew of Hallmyres, annoyed by the burgher-bairns, struck one of them a blow in the face, which the spruce scion of the Lithgow tailor returned with far more gallantry than might have been expected from one of his degenerate caste. The cousin Johnny took the part of his relative; and matters were fast progressing towards hostilities, when the lady of Hallmyres rose to quell the incipient affair.

"Aff hands, my woman," cried Peggy, suddenly leaving her chair.

"Ay, ay," added Betty, "we hae at least a right to civility in the house o' our sister. We come kindly and friendly, as may be seen frae what's in my bundle--a gude bacon ham, and a gude cassimir waistcoat, sewed by Saunders' ain hands, for the guidman o' Cauldshouthers, and a' we want is something like friendliness in return. Just let the bairns alane. They'll gree fine when better acquaint."

"Mrs. Geddes," said Grizelda, with a puckered face and a starched manner, "ye'll better tak yer friends ben the house."

"Awa wi' them!" added the laird. "We maun hae a reckoning about a' this."

"There's no the sma'est occasion for't," responded Betty. "The bairns will agree fine. Just let them play themselves while we're taking our tea. Saunders will be here immediately."

"A guid advice," added Peggy; "but wha are our friends, Janet? Canna ye speak, woman? This will be Mr. Geddes, my brither-in-law, I fancy; and this will be Girzie, my gude-sister; but as for the ithers, I ken nae mair about them than I do o' the brothers and sisters o' the sergeant, wham I never saw."

"And here comes Saunders, at last," cried Betty, rising, and running to the window. "I will gang and let him in."

Bustling to the door, she executed her purpose, and straightway appeared again, ushering in, with a face that told her pride in her husband, a Crispinite, wonderfully _bien fait_, dressed in a suit of glossy black, clean shaven, and as pale as any sprig of nobility.

"Mr. Geddes, I presume," said he, rubbing his hands, which retained the marks of the needle, if not the dye of the mournings.

"Here's a chair for ye, Saunders," cried Betty. "Ye'll no be caring for tea, after the gill ye had wi' yer auld foreman, at the sign o' the 'Harrow,' yonder. Had ye ony mair after I left ye? I'm no sure about yer e'e. There's mair glamour in't than there should be. Sit ye down, and I'll bring the bundle with the ham and the waistcoat."

Grizelda held up her hands in amazement.

"For the love o' heaven, leave us, good leddies," she said to her friends.

"Oh ay," added the laird, "leave us, leave us, for mercy's sake."

"You have got into a duckpool," whispered the lady of Hallmyres, as she rose, followed by the others; "and I wish you fair out of it. Good by--good by."

BON GUALTIER'S TALES.

COUNTRY QUARTERS.

A pleasanter little town than Potterwell does not exist in that part of her Majesty's dominions called Scotland. On one side, the hand of cultivation has covered a genial soil with richness and fertility. The stately mansion, "bosomed high in tufted trees," occasionally invites the eye, as it wanders over the landscape; while here and there, the river Wimpledown may be seen peeping out amid the luxuriant verdure of wood and plain, and seeming to concentrate on itself all the radiance of any little sunshine that may be going. On the other side, again, are nothing but impracticable mountains--fine bluff old fellows--that evidently have an extensive and invincible contempt for Time, and, like other great ones of the earth, never carry any _change_ about them. Look beyond these, and the prospect is indeed a fine one--a little monotonous, perhaps, but still a fine one--peak receding behind peak in endless series, a multitudinous sea of mountain tops, with noses as blue as a disappointed man's face, or Miss Harriet Martineau's stockings.

With a situation presenting such allurements for the devotees of the picturesque, is it wonderful that Potterwell became a favourite resort? By the best of good fortune, too, a spring, close by, of a peculiarly nauseous character, had, a few years before the period we write of, attracted attention by throwing into violent convulsions sundry cows that had been so far left to themselves as to drink of it, besides carrying off an occasional little boy or so, as a sort of just retribution for so far suppressing his natural tastes as to admit it within his lips. Dr. Scammony, however, had taken the mineral water under his patronage; and his celebrated pamphlet upon the medicinal properties of the Potterwell Mephitic Assafoetida Waters at once fixed their reputation, while it materially augmented his own. A general subscription was projected, with a view to the erection of a pump-room. The plan took amazingly; and, from being left to work its way out, as best it might, through the diseased and miserable weeds with which it was overgrown, the spring all at once found itself established in a handsome apartment, fitted up with a most benevolent attention to the wants of such persons as might repair thither with the probable chance--however little they might be conscious of the fact--of dying by a watery death.

It was a bright sparkling morning in August, and there was an exhilarating freshness in the air, that caused the heart to leap up, and make the spirit as unclouded as the blue sky overhead. The pump-room was thronged, and every one congratulated his neighbour on the beauty of the morning.

"At your post as usual, Stukeley!" said a smartly-dressed young man, stepping up to Mr. Stukeley--a well-known frequenter of the wells since their first celebrity--and shaking him warmly by the hand. "I do believe you are retained as a check upon the pump woman, that you keep such a strict look out after her customers. How many doses has she administered to-day? Come now, out with your note-book, and let me see."

"Oh, my dear Frank, if you really want to know, I am the man for you--Old Cotton of Dundee, four and a-half, and his daughter took off the balance of the six. What do you think I heard him whisper to her?--'Hoot, lassie, tak it aff, it's a' paid for;' and she, poor soul, was forced to gulp it down, that he might have the satisfaction of knowing that full value had been given for his penny. Then there was Runrig the farmer from Mid-Lothian, half-a-dozen; the man has a frame of iron, and a cheek as fresh as new-mown hay; but somebody had told him the water would do him good, and he has accordingly taken enough to make him ill for a fortnight. Then, there was Deacon Dobie's rich widow--fat, fair, and forty--she got pretty well through the seventh tumbler; but, it's a way with her, when she begins drinking, not to know when to stop; which, by the way, may account for her having been, for some time, as she elegantly expresses it, 'gey an nervish ways, whiles.' After her came"----And Stukeley was going on to enumerate the different visiters of the morning, checking them off upon his fingers as he proceeded, when his friend, Frank Preston, stopped him.

"For Heaven's sake, have done; and tell me, if you can, who those two fops of fellows are at the foot of the room? They only came a week ago; and, though nobody knows who they are, they have made the acquaintance of half the people here."

"I see nothing very odd in that. I know nothing of the men; but they dress well, and are moderately good-looking, and have just sufficient assurance to pass off upon the uninitiated for ease of manner and fashionable breeding. A pair of parvenus, no doubt; but what is your motive for asking so particularly about them?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing! Only, I am to meet them at the Cheeshams to-night, and I wished to know something of them."

"So, so! sets the wind in that quarter? A rival, Master Frank? It is there the shoe pinches, is it?"

"A rival--nonsense! What should I care whether the puppies are attentive to Emily Cheesham or not?"

"Why more to her than to her sister Fanny? I mentioned no names. Ha! Master Frank, you see I have caught you. Come, come, tell me what it is annoys you?"

"Well," stammered out Frank Preston,--"well, the fact is--the fact is, one of them has been rather particular in his attentions to Emily, and I am half-inclined to think she gives him encouragement."

"And, suppose she does, I see nothing in that but the harmless vanity of a girl, pleased to have another dangler under her spell."

"That is all very well, but I don't like it a bit. It may be so, and it may not. Her encouragement to him is very marked, and I don't feel easy under it at all, I don't."

"Why, Frank, you must both have a very poor opinion of Miss Emily, and be especially soft yourself, to give yourself any concern in the matter. If you have deemed her worthy of your regards, and she has given you warrant for thinking you have a claim upon them, and yet she now throws you off to make way for this newer lover, your course is a clear one. Turn from her at once, and fortify yourself with old Withers' lines--

'If she be not made for me
What care I for whom she be.'"

"Excellent philosophy, if one could but act upon it. But what annoys me about the business is, that I am sure these fellows are a pair of snobs, and are playing themselves off for something greater than they are."

"Very possibly; but that is just a stronger reason for taking my advice. If Miss Emily can be gratified with the attentions of such persons, leave her to the full enjoyment of them. Don't make yourself miserable for her folly."

"Oh, I don't make myself miserable at all, not in the least; only, I should like to find out who the fellows are."

The young men, of whom Preston and Stukeley had been speaking, and who now lounged up the room, describing semicircles with their legs at every step they took, were certainly never meant for the ordinary tear and wear of the hard-working every-day world. Their dress had too fine a gloss upon it for that, their hair much too gracefully disposed. They were both rather below the middle size, both dark in the complexion, but one of them much more so than the other. The darker slip of humanity had cultivated the growth of his hair with singular success. It fell away in masses from his forehead and temples, and curled, like the rings of the young vine, over the velvet collar that capped a coat of symmetrical proportions. Circling round the cheeks, and below the chin, it somewhat obtruded upon the space which is generally occupied by the face, so that his head might truly be said to be a mass of hair, slightly interspersed with features. His friend, again, to avoid monotony, had varied the style of his upper works, and his locks were allowed to droop in long, lanky, melancholy tangles down his sallow cheeks; while, perched upon either lip, might be seen a feathery-looking object, not to be accounted for, but on the supposition that it was intended to seduce the public into a belief of its being a moustache. Both were showily dressed. Both had stocks terminating in a cataract of satin that emptied itself into tartan velvet waistcoats, worn probably in honour of the country; both had gold chains innumerable, twisting in a multiplicity of convolutions across these waistcoats; both had on yellow kid gloves of unimpeachable purity, and both carried minute canes of imitation ebony, with which, at intervals, they flogged, one the right and the other the left leg, with the most painful ferocity. They were a noble pair; alike, yet, oh, how different!

"Eugene, my boy," said the darker of the two, in a tone of voice loud enough to let half the room hear the interesting communication, "we must see what sort of stuff this here water is--we must, positively."

"Roost eggs, Adolph, whisked in bilge-water, with a rusty tenpenny nail. Faugh! I'm smashed if I taste it."

"Not so bad that for you," returned Adolph, smiling faintly; "but you must really pay your respects to the waters."

"'Pon my soul, I shawn't. I had enough of that so't of thing in Jummany, the time I was ova with Ned Hoxham."

"That was the time, wasn't it, that you brought me over that choice lot of cigaws?"

"I believe it was," responded Eugene, with the most impressive indifference, as if he wished it to be understood that he had been so often there that he could not recall the particulars of any one visit.

"I know something of Seidlitz and Seltzer myself," resumed the darker Adonis, "and Soda water too, by Jove, for that matter, and they're not bad things either, when one's been making a night of it, so I'll have a try at this Potterwell fluid, and see how it does for a change."

In this manner the two friends proceeded, to the infinite enlightenment of those about them, who, being greatly struck with their easy and facetious manners, stood admiringly by with looks of evident delight! The young men saw the impression they were making, and, desirous of keeping it up, went on to ask the priestess of the spring, how often, and in what quantities she found it necessary to doctor it with Glauber salts, brimstone, and assafoetida. The joke took immensely. Such of the bystanders as could laugh--for the internal agitation produced by the cathartic properties of their morning draught, made that a somewhat difficult and dangerous experiment--did so; and various young men, of no very definite character, but who seemed to support the disguise of gentlemen with considerable pain to themselves, sidled up, and endeavoured to strike into conversation with our Nisus and Euryalus, thinking to share by contact the glory which they had won. All they got for their pains, however, was a stare of cool indifference. The friends were as great adepts in the art and mystery of _cutting_, as the most fashionable tailor could be; and, after volunteering a few ineffectual efforts at sprightliness, these awkward aspirants to fame were forced to fall back, abashed and crest-fallen, into the natural insignificance of their character.

These proceedings did not pass unnoticed by Preston and his elderly friend, who made their own observations upon them, but were prevented from saying anything on the subject to each other by the entrance of a party, which diverted their attention in a different direction. These were no other than Mrs. Cheesham and her two accomplished daughters, Miss Emily and Miss Fanny Cheesham. Mrs. Cheesham's personal appearance may be passed over very briefly; as no one, so far as is known, ever cared about it but herself. She was vain, vulgar, and affected; fond of finery and display; and the one dominant passion of her life was to insinuate herself and her family into fashionable society, and secure a brilliant match for her daughters. They, again, were a pair of attractive showy girls; Emily flippant, sparkling, lively; Fanny, demure, reserved, and cold. Emily's eyes were dark and lustrous--you saw the best of them at once; and her look, alert and wicked. These corresponded well with a well-rounded figure, a rosy complexion, and full pouting lips, that were "ruddier than the cherry." Fanny was tall and "stately in her going;" pale, but without that look of sickliness which generally accompanies such a complexion, and her eyes, beautiful as they were when brought into play, were generally shrouded by the drooping of her eyelids, like those of one who is accustomed to be frequently self-inwrapt. With Emily you might sport in jest and raillery by the hour; but with Fanny you always felt, as it were, bound to be upon your best behaviour. They passed up the room, distributing nods of recognition, and occasionally stopping to allow Mrs. Cheesham to give her invitations to a _soiree musicale_ which she intended to get up that evening.

"Your servant, ladies," said old Stukeley, raising his hat, while his friend followed his example. "You are late. I was afraid we were not to have the pleasure of seeing you this morning. Pray, Miss Emily, what new novel or poem was it that kept you awake so late last night that you have lost half this glorious morning? Tell me the author's name, that I may punish the delinquent, by cutting up his book, in the next number of our review?"

"Cut it up, and you will do more than I could; for I found myself nodding over the second page, and I feel the drowsiness about me still."

"The opiate--the opiate, Miss Emily? Who was its compounder? He must be a charmer indeed."

"Himself and his printer knows. Only some unhappy bard, who dubs us women 'The angels of life,' and misuses us vilely through a dozen cantos of halting verse. The poor man has forgot the story

'Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world and all our woe,'

or he would have christened us daughters of Eve by a very different name."

"O you little rogue! you are too hard upon this devotee to your dear deluding sex. It is only his excess of politeness that has made him forget his historical reading."

"His politeness! Fiddlestick! I would as soon have a troop of boys inflict the intolerable tediousness of their calf-love upon me as endure the rhapsodies of a booby, who strips us of our good flesh and blood, frailties and all, to etherealize us into an incomprehensible compound of tears, sighs, moonshine, music, love, flowers, and hysterics."

"Emily, how you run on!" broke in Mrs. Cheesham. "My dear Mr. Stukeley, really you must not encourage the girl in her nonsense. I declare, I sometimes think her tongue runs away with her wits."

"Better that, I'm sure, madam, than have it run away without them," responded Stukeley, in a deprecating tone, which threw Mrs. Cheesham, whose intellect was none of the acutest, completely out.

"Girls, there are Mr. Blowze and Mr. Lilylipz," said Mrs. Cheesham, looking in the direction of the friends, Adolph and Eugene; "you had better arrange with them about coming this evening."

Emily advanced, with her sister, to the engaging pair, who received them with that peculiar contortion of the body, between a jerk and a shuffle, which young men are in the habit of mistaking for a bow, and was soon deep in the heart of a flirtation with Adolph, while Fanny stood listening to the vapid nothings of Eugene, a very model of passive endurance. Frank Preston was anything but an easy spectator of this movement; nor was Emily blind to this; but, like a wilful woman, she could not forbear playing the petty tyrant, and exercising freely the power to torment which she saw that she possessed.

"You will be of our party to-night, gentlemen," continued Mrs. Cheesham. "We are to have a little music. You are fond of music, Mr. Stukeley, I know; and no pressing can be necessary to an ama_toor_ like you, Mr. Francis. I can assure you, you'll meet some very nice people. Mr. and Mrs. M'Skrattachan, highly respectable people--an old Highland family, and with very high connections. Mr. M'Skrattachan's mother's sister's aunt--no, his aunt's mother's sister--yes, that was it--Mr. M'Skrattachan's aunt's mother's sister; and yet I don't know--I dare say I was right before--at all events, it was one or other of them--married a second cousin--something of that kind--of the Duke of Argyle, by the mother's side. They had a large estate in Skye or Ross-shire--I am not sure which, but it was somewhere thereabout."

Stukeley and Preston were glad to cover their retreat by acceptance of Mrs. Cheesham's invitation; and, leaving her to empty the dregs of the details which she had begun into the willing ears of some of her more submissive friends, they made their escape from the pump-room.

Slopbole Cottage, where the Cheesham's were domiciliated during their sojourn at Potterwell, was situated upon the banks of the Wimpledown, at a distance of somewhat less than a quarter of a mile from the burgh. It had, at one time, been a farm-house; but, within a few years, it had been recast: and, by the addition of a bow window, a trellised door, and a few of the usual et ceteras, it had been converted into what is by courtesy termed a cottage ornee. It was an agreeable place, for all that, shaded by the remnants of a fine old wood--the rustling of whose foliage made pleasant music, as it blended with the ever-sounding plash and rushing of the stream.

When Frank Preston arrived at Slopbole Cottage that evening, he found the drawing-room already well stocked with the usual components of a tea-party. The two exquisites of the morning he saw, to his dismay, were already there. Adolph was assiduously sacrificing to the charms and wit of Miss Emily, while his shadow, Eugene, was--but Preston did not care about that--as much engaged in Macadamising his great conceptions into small talk suitable for the intellectual capacity of Miss Fanny. Mrs. Cheesham regarded these proceedings with entire satisfaction. The friends, to her mind, were men of birth, fashion, and fortune, and the very men for her daughters. Besides, there was a mystery about them that was charming. Nobody knew exactly who they were, although everybody was sure they were somebody. None but great people ever travel _incog_. They were evidently struck by her daughters. Things were in a fair train; and, if she could but make a match of it, Mrs. Cheesham thought she might then fold her hands across, and make herself easy for life. Her daughters would be the wives of great men, and she was their mother, and every one knows what an important personage a wife's mother is.

"Two very fine young men, Mr. Francis," said Mrs. Cheesham. "Extremely intelligent people. And so good looking! Quite _distingue_, too. It is not every day one meets such people."

Frank Preston threw in the necessary quantity of "yes's," "certainly's," and so forth, while Mrs. Cheesham continued--

"They seem rather taken with my girls, don't they? Mr. Blowze is never away from Emily's side. His attentions are quite marked. Don't you think, now, they'd make a nice pair? They're both so lively--always saying such clever things. I never knew Emily so smart either; but that girl's all animation--all spirits. I always said Emily would never do but for a rattle of a husband--a man that could talk as much as herself. It does not do, you know, really it does not do for the wife to have too much of the talk to herself. I make that a principle; and, as I often tell Cheesham, I let him have it all his own way, rather than argue a point with him."

This was, of course, an exceedingly agreeable strain of conversation to the lover, to whom it was no small relief, when Mrs. Cheesham quitted his side to single out her musical friends for the performance of a quartette. At her summons, these parties were seen to emerge from the various recesses where they had been concealing themselves, in all the majesty of silence, as is the way with musical amateurs in general. Miss Fanny, who was really an accomplished performer, was called to preside at the pianoforte, and Mr. Lilylipz rushed before to adjust the music-stool and turn over the leaves for her. Mr. Blewitt got out his flute, and, after screwing it together, commenced a series of blasts upon it, which were considered necessary to the process of tuning. Mr. Harrower, the violoncello player, turned up the wristbands of his coat, placed his handkerchief on his left knee, and, after a preliminary flourish or two of his hands, began to grind his violoncello into a proper sharpness of pitch. Not to be behind the rest, Mr. Fogle screwed his violin strings first up, and then he screwed them down, and then he proceeded to screw them up again, with a waywardness of purpose that might have been extremely diverting, if its effects had not been so very distressing to the ears. Having thus begot a due degree of attention in their audience, the performers thought of trying how the results of their respective preparations tallied.

"Miss Fanny, will you be kind enough to sound your A?" lisped Mr. Blewitt.

Miss Fanny did sound her A, and again a dissonance broke forth that would have thrown Orpheus into fits. It was then discovered that the damp had reduced the piano nearly a whole tone below pitch, and Mr. Blewitt's flute could not be brought down to a level with it by any contrivance. The musicians, however, were not to be baulked in their purpose for this, and they agreed to proceed with the flute some half a tone higher than the other instruments. But there was a world of preliminary work yet to be gone through; tables had to be adjusted, and books had to be built upon music stands. But the tables would not stand conveniently, and the books would fall, and then all the work of adjustment and library architecture had to be gone over again. At last these matters were put to rights, and, after a few more indefinite vagaries by Messrs. Blewitt, Harrower, and Fogle, the junto made a dash into the heart of one of Haydn's quartetts. The piano kept steadily moving through the piece. Miss Fanny knew her work, and she did it. The others did not know theirs, and they _did for_ it. After a few faint squeaks at the beginning, Mr. Blewitt's flute dropped out of hearing altogether, and, just as everybody had set it down as defunct, it began to give token of its existence by a wail or two rising through the storm of sounds with which the performance closed, and then made up its leeway by continuing to vapour away for some time after the rest had finished.

"Bless my heart, are you done?" cried Mr. Blewitt, breaking off in the middle of a solo, which he found himself performing to his own astonishment.

Mr. Harrower and Mr. Fogle threw up their eyes with an intensity of contempt that defies description. To be sure, neither of them had kept either time or tune all the way through. Mr. Harrower's violoncello had growled and groaned, at intervals, in a manner truly pitiable; and Mr. Fogle's bow had done nothing but dance and leap, in a perpetual staccato from the first bar to the last, to the entire confusion of both melody and concord. But they had both managed to be in at the death, and were therefore entitled to sneer at the unhappy flutist. Mr. Eugene Lilylipz, who had annoyed Miss Fanny throughout the performance, by invariably turning over the leaf at the wrong place, now broke into a volley of raptures, of which the words "Devaine" and "Chawming," were among the principal symbols. A buzz of approbation ran round the room, warm in proportion to the relief which the cessation of the Dutch concert afforded. Mr. Harrower and his coadjutors grew communicative, and vented an infinite quantity of the jargon of dilettanteism upon each other and upon those about them. They soon got into a discussion upon the merits of different composers, whose names served them to bandy to and fro in the battledore and shuttlecock of conversation. Beethoven was cried up to the seventh heaven by Mr. Harrower, for his grandeur and sublimity, and all that sort of thing.

"There is a Miltonic greatness about the man!" he exclaimed, throwing his eyes to the ceiling, in the contemplation of a visionary demigod. "A vastness, a massiveness, an incomprehensible--eh, eh?--ah, I can't exactly tell what, that places him far above all other writers."

"Every man to his taste," insinuated Mr. Blewitt; "but I certainly like what I can understand best. Now I don't understand Beethoven; but I _can_ understand Mozart, or Weber, or Haydn."

"It is very well if you do!" retorted the violoncellist, reflecting probably on the recent specimen Mr. Blewitt had given of his powers. "It is more than everybody does, I can tell you."

"Od, gentlemen, but it's grand music onyhow, and exceeding justice you have done it, if I may speak my mind. But ye ken, I'm no great shakes of a judge."

This was the opinion volunteered by Mr. Cheesham, who saw the musicians were giving symptoms of that tendency to discord for which they are proverbial, and threw out a sop to their vanity, which at once restored them to order. As he said himself, Mr. Cheesham was no great judge of music, nor, indeed, of any of the fine arts. He had read little, and thought less; and yet, since he had become independent of the world, he was fond of assuming an air of knowledge, that was exceedingly amusing. There was nothing, for instance, that he liked better to be talking about than history; and, nevertheless, that Hannibal was killed at the battle of Drumclog, and Julius Caesar beheaded by Henry the Eighth, were facts which he would probably have had no hesitation in admitting, upon any reasonable representation.

By this time, Mr. Stukeley had joined the party, and was going his rounds, chatting, laughing, quizzing, and prosing, according to the different characters of the people whom he talked with. When he reached Mr. Cheesham, he found him in earnest conversation with Mr. Lilylipz, regarding the ruins of Tinglebury, an abbey not far from Potterwell, of which the architecture was pronounced, by Mr. Lilylipz, to be "_suttinly_ transcandent beyond anythin_k_. It is of that pure Graeco-Gothic, which was brought over by William the Conqueror, and went out with the Saxons."

Stukeley encouraged the conversation, drawing out the presumptuous ignorance of Mr. Lilylipz, and the rusty nomeanings of the parent Cheesham into strong relief.

"Gentlemen, excuse me for breaking up your _tete-a-tete_. Have you got upon 'Shakspeare, taste, and the musical glasses?'" said Miss Emily, joining the trio. "Mr. Lilylipz, your friend tells me you sing. Will you break the dullness, and favour us?"

"Oh, I never do sing; and, besides, I am suffering from hoarseness."

"Come, come," replied Miss Emily, "none of these excuses, or we shall expect to find a very Braham, at least."

"Now, _r_eally!" remonstrated Mr. Lilylipz.

"Oh, never mind his nonsense, Miss Cheesham," exclaimed Mr. Blowze, from the other side of the room. "Lilylipz sings an uncommonly good song, when he likes. Give us 'the Rose of Cashmere,' or 'She wore a wreath of Roses.' Come away, now--no humbug!"

"Oh, that will be delightful!--pray, do sing!" were the exclamations of a dozen voices, at least. "Mr. Lilylipz' song!" shouted the elderly gentlemen of the party; and, forthwith, an awful stillness reigned throughout the apartment. Upon this, Mr. Lilylipz blew his nose, coughed thrice, and, throwing himself back in his chair, rivetted his eyes, with the utmost intensity, upon a corner of the ceiling. Every one held back his breath in expectation, and the interesting young man opened upon the assemblage with a ballad all about an Araby maid, to whom a Christian knight was submitting proposals of elopement, which the lady appeared to be by no means averse to, for each stanza ended with the refrain, "Away, away, away!" signifying that the parties meant to be off somewhere as fast as possible. Mr. Lilylipz had just concluded verse the first, and the "Away, away, away!" had powerfully excited the imagination of the young ladies present, when the door opened, and the clinking of crystal ware announced the inopportune entrance of a maidservant bearing a trayful of glasses filled with that vile imbroglio of hot water and sugar coloured with wine, which passes in genteel circles by the name of negus. All eyes turned towards the door, and Mrs. Cheesham exclaimed, "Sally, be quiet!" but Mr. Eugene was too much enrapt by his own performance to feel the disturbance, and he tore away through verse the second with kindling enthusiasm. "Away, away, away!" sang the vocalist, when a crash and a scream arrested his progress. The servant maid had dropped the tray, and the glasses were rolling to and fro upon the floor in a confusion of fragments, while the delinquent, Sally, shrieking at the top of her voice, was making her way out at the door with all the speed she was mistress of.

"What the devil's that?" cried one. "The careless slut!" screamed another. "Such thoughtlessness!" suggested a third. "What the deuce could the woman mean?" asked a fourth. "It's the last night she sets foot in my house!" exclaimed Mrs. Cheesham, thrown off her dignity by the sudden shock.

"Bless me, you look unwell!" said Mr. Cheesham to Mr. Lilylipz, who had turned deadly pale, and was altogether looking excessively unhappy.

"Oh, it is nothing. Only a constitutional nervousness. The start, the surprise, that sort of thing, you know; but it will go off in a moment. I shall just take a turn in the air for a little, and I'll be quite better."

The ladies were engaged in the contemplation of the wreck at the other end of the room, and Mr. Lilylipz, accompanied by his friend, stepped out at one of the drawing-room windows, which opened out upon the lawn. Frank Preston looked after them, and saw them in the moonlight, passing down the banks of the river among the trees, apparently engaged in earnest conversation.

"What do you think of this business, eh?" said Stukeley, rousing him from a reverie, by a tap upon the shoulder. "Queerish a little, isn't it?"

"Queerish _not_ a little, I think; and blow me if I don't get to the bottom of it, or the devil's in it. That girl knows something of Mr. Eugene, I'll be sworn. We must get out of her what it is."

"Oh, no doubt she does. It wasn't the song that threw her off, although it was certainly vile enough for anything; it was himself; that is as clear as day. Let us off, hunt out the wench, and get the secret from her."

They left the room by the open window, and passing round the house to the servants' entrance, walked into the kitchen, where they found Sally labouring under strong excitement, as she narrated the incident which had led to her precipitate retreat from the drawing-room.

"To think of seeing him here; the base deceitful wretch! Cocked up in the drawing-room, forsooth, as if that were a place for him or the likes of him. Set him up indeed--a pretty story. But I know'd as how he'd never come to no good!"

"Who is he, my dear?" inquired Stukeley.

"Who is he, sir!--who should he be but Tom Newlands, the son of Dame Newlands of our village."

"Oh, you must certainly be mistaken."

"Never a bit mistaken am I, sir. I have too good reason for remembering him, the wretch! Oh, if I had him here, I wouldn't give it him, I wouldn't? I'd sarve him out, the deludin' scoundrel. But he never was good for nothing since he went into the haberdashery line."

"A haberdasher, is he? Capital!--capital! The man of fashion, eh, Frank?"

"The young man of _distingue_ appearance!"

"And who's his friend, Sally?"

"What! the other chap? Oh, I don't know anything about him, except that he's one of them man millinery fellows; and a precious bad lot they are, I know."

"Glorious!--glorious!" cried Stukeley, crying with delight, as he walked out of the place with his friend. "Here's a discovery for some folks, isn't it? The brilliant alliance, the high family, et cetera, et cetera, all dwindled into a measurer of tapes. Aren't you proud of having had such a rival?"

"Oh, come, don't be too hard upon me on that point. Mum, here we are at the drawing-room again. Not a word of what we have heard. If these scamps have made themselves scarce, as I think they have, good and well. But, if they venture to shew face here again, I shall certainly feel it to be my duty to pull their noses, and eject them from the premises by a summary process."

"Oh, never fear, they will not put you to the trouble. They are off for good and all, or I am no prophet."

Stukeley was right. The evening passed on, and the friends returned not. Infinite were the surmises which their absence occasioned, but the general conclusion was, that the interesting Mr. Lilylipz had found himself worse, and had retired to his inn for the night, along with his faithful Achates. Morning came, but the friends did not make their appearance at the pump-room as usual. They were not at their inn; they were not in Potterwell. Whither they had wended, no one knew; but, like the characters in the ballad, which had been so oddly broken off, they were "away, away, away." They had come like shadows, and like shadows they had departed.

Some months afterwards, Mrs. Cheesham and her daughter Emily entered one of the extensive drapery warehouses of Edinburgh, to invest a portion of their capital in the purchase of a _mousseline de laine_. They had seen an advertisement which intimated that no lady ought, in justice to herself, to buy a dress of this description without first inspecting that company's stock of the article. They were determined to do themselves justice, and they went accordingly.

"Eugene," said the superintendent of the place, "shew these ladies that parcel of goods. A very superior article, indeed." Eugene! Eugene! the ladies had good reason to remember the name; and what was their surprise, on looking round, to see the exquisite of Potterwell bending under a load of dress pieces? If their surprise was great, infinitely greater was his dismay. His knees shook; his eyes grew dim; his head giddy. His hands lost their power, and, dropping the bundle, the unhappy Eugene stumbled over it in a manner painfully ignoble. Mrs. and Miss Cheesham turned to quit the shop, when there, behind them, stood the dashing Adolph. "The devil!" he exclaimed, and, ducking dexterously under the counter, disappeared among sundry bales that were piled beyond it. The lesson was not lost. Mrs. Cheesham had had quite enough of quality-hunting to satisfy her; and Miss Emily found out that it was desirable to be wise as well as witty, and gave her hand to Frank Preston, who forgave her temporary apostacy, not only because it had been smartly punished by the result, but for the sake of the many estimable qualities which Miss Cheesham really possessed. Miss Fanny still roams, "in maiden meditation, fancy free," but she cannot do so long, or there is no skill in man. At all events, when she does want a husband, she will not go in search of him to COUNTRY QUARTERS.

THE MONK OF ST. ANTHONY.

"When the devil was sick, the devil a monk would be;
When the devil grew well, the devil a monk was he."

In that very ancient and very filthy quarter of the town of Leith, called the Coal Hill, there flourished, in days of yore, a certain hostelrie kept by one David Wemyss. This house, which was distinguished by the figure of a ship, carved in high relief in stone over the lintel of the door, was one of good repute, and much resorted to by the seafaring people who frequented the port.

But it was not alone the good cheer and reasonable charges, for both of which "The Ship" was remarkable, that brought so many customers to David Wemyss: for this patronage he was as much indebted to his own civil and obliging manner, as to the considerations just mentioned, although, doubtless, these had their due weight with all considerate and reflecting men.

With all David's civility of manner, however, there was thought to be a spice of the rogue in him; just the smallest thing possible; but it was a sort of good-humoured roguery. In the small trickery he practised, there was as much to laugh at as to deprecate; for, being a facetious sort of personage himself, everything he did--good, bad, and indifferent--had a touch, less or more, of this quality about it; so that he could hardly be said to have been liked a bit the less for his left-handed propensities; the more especially that these were never exhibited in his dealings with his guests or customers, to whom he always acted the part of an obliging and conscientious landlord. He knew this to be for his interest, and therefore did he abide by it.

At the period at which our story opens, namely, the year 1559, the Reformation, if it had not yet driven papacy entirely out of the land, had, at least, compelled it to retire into holes and corners, and to avoid, as much as possible, the public eye. One of the last retreats of the denounced religion in its adversity, was the preceptory of St. Anthony, in Leith. For the protection, or rather endurance, which it found here, it was indebted to the circumstance of the town's being, in an especial manner, under the patronage of Mary of Guise or Lorraine, the mother of the unfortunate Scottish queen of that name.

Conceiving Leith to be, as it was, a convenient point from which to correspond with France, and well situated for the reception of such supplies as might be sent her from that country, to enable her to make head against her discontented nobles, Mary made the town, as it were, her own; and to identify herself still more closely with it, made it also, for some time, her place of residence.

To this circumstance, then, was it owing, that after they had almost wholly disappeared everywhere else, a few monks might still be seen moving stealthily and crest-fallen through the streets of Leith. These belonged to the preceptory of St. Anthony, which stood at the upper or western end of the long, tortuous street, called the Kirkgate.

But even from this, one of its last places of refuge, was prelacy now about to be driven. The town, at the particular period to which our tale refers, was besieged by the lords of the congregation, aided by an army of three thousand English, under Lord Gray of Wilton, who had been despatched for this purpose by Elizabeth, to whom the Reformers had appealed in their necessities.

The reader, then, will understand that he is in a beleaguered town: that he is in Leith during the famous siege of that ancient seaport; when it was invested on all sides by the enemies of prelacy, and against whom it was defended, chiefly by a body of French troops, under a general of the name of D'Oysel, who had been sent from France to aid the Queen Regent in maintaining her authority in the kingdom.

Having despatched these preliminaries, we proceed with our story.

It was on a certain evening in the latter end of April, or beginning of May, 1559, that mine host of "The Ship" was suddenly summoned from his cellar, at a moment when he was employed in tapping a new hogshead of claret, by a gentle rap at a quiet back door which stood just beside the hatchway that led to the cellar in question.

This door, which had been contrived, or struck out, for the accommodation of private and confidential customers, who did not care to be seen entering "The Ship" by the front door, was accessible only through a complicated labyrinth of mean buildings, on a spot still known by the name of the Peat Neuk, and so called, from its having been the public depository of that description of fuel, before coals came into the general use in which they now are, and have long been.

"Wha's this?" muttered David Wemyss to himself, on hearing the gentle rap at the back door above spoken of, and, at the same time, laying down a bright tankard of claret, which he had just drawn from the newly broached hogshead. "Lang Willie Wilson, the herrin curer, I dare say, or the skipper o' the Cut-luggit Sow o' Kirkcaldy."

Thus conjecturing who his visiter might be, David Wemyss approached the door, undid its fastenings, and admitted, not Willie Wilson, the herring curer, nor the Kirkcaldy skipper, but a certain worthy brother of the preceptory of St. Anthony, by name Peter Drinkhooly. Peter, who wore the dress of his order, namely, a loose, black cloth gown, had long been one of mine host of "The Ship's" private and confidential customers. He dearly loved a stoup of fresh claret; but both his character and calling compelled him to go cautiously about such carnal indulgences, and to trust no front doors with his secret.

Peter, however, although addicted to vinous propensities, was not what could be called a "jolly friar." He was rather a quiet, maudlin sort of a toper; neither boisterous in manner, nor reckless in disposition. He could, however, drink with the face of clay.

"Oh, father, is that you?" said David, on perceiving the black gown and slouched hat of his visiter. "I thocht it had been Willie Wilson, or the skipper. Stap awa in by there," pointing to the well-known sanctum of the backdoor customers; "and I'll gie ye a tasting o' a fresh tap I was just at whan ye cam in."

Without saying a word in reply, Friar Drinkhooly glided into the little dark closet indicated by mine host, and there awaited the reappearance of the latter from the cellar with the promised sample of the new butt. Both quickly came.

"Awfu' times--father, awfu' times thae," said David, placing a tankard of claret on the table, and seating himself directly opposite his guest. "If this siege continues muckle langer, guid kens what'll become o' us. They tell me that some o' the Frenchmen hae ta'en to eatin their dead horses already, for want o' better provender. But they can cook up onything, thae Frenchers, and can mak, I'm tell't, a savoury mess oot o' a pair o' auld boots. But come, tak a mouthfu' o' that," continued mine host, shoving the tankard towards his guest, "an' tell me what ye think o' our new browst."

Father Drinkhooly, who had not yet spoken a word, or in any other way noticed what had been addressed to him, than by nods and shakes of the head, readily obeying the gratifying invitation, seized the tankard, and, at one pull, emptied it of half its contents. Having performed this feat, he replaced the vessel on the table, wiped his mouth with a quiet, composed air, and, in a soft under-tone, said--

"Fair liquor, David--fair liquor. What size is the cask?"

"It's a gey thumper," replied mine host; "big aneuch, I hope, to see oot the siege o' Leith."

"Ay, the heretic is pressing us hard, David. The strength of the wicked is prevailing," said Father Drinkhooly; "but there will be a day of count and reckoning. It is coming, David, coming on the wings of the thunder, to blast and destroy the sacrilegious spoilers; to scaith and render barren this accursed land."

"Weel, I wadna wonder," replied David, looking very serious; for, although he cared little for either the new religion or the old, he had, if anything, rather a leaning towards the latter; at least, so was suspected; but this was a point not easily decided on, owing to the very accommodating nature of David's doctrines, which, at a moment's notice, could adapt themselves to any circumstances.

"I wadna wonder," said David; "for I'm sure the spoilin and ravagin that's gaun on is aneuch to bring down the judgments o' Heaven on us. Heard ye if there hae been mony killed the day?"

"Alas! a very great number," replied Father Drinkhooly. "There has been a terrible slaughter to-day, at the western block-house. The brethren and I have shrived some twenty or thirty departing souls, who fell by the cannon-shot of the enemy--two of them officers and men of rank in the French army--worthy, pious men--who have left something considerable to the brotherhood. But God knows if we will be permitted te enjoy it."

"Ay," said David, pricking up his ears, as he always did when money, or property in any shape, became the subject of conversation--"That was a lucky wind-fa'; for I daresay the brethren are no oot o' need o' a wee assistance o' that kind enow. Times are no wi' them as they used to be. What feck, noo, if it's a fair question, did the twa Frenchmen leave ye?"

"It's not usual for us to speak of these things, David," replied Father Drinkhooly--"not usual for us to make these things the subject of irreverent discussion; but, as thou art an old friend, I will gratify thy curiosity--doing the same in confidence. Here," continued the worthy father, slipping his hand under his cloak, and drawing out a leathern bag well stored with coin, "here are a hundred and fifty crowns of the sun placed in my hands by one of these dying Christians, and here are three gold rings, worth fifty merks each, that were given unto me by the other, under pledge of saying fifteen masses for the well-being of the soul of the departed donor."

"My feth! no a bad day's work," said David. "It's an ill wind that blaws naebody guid. The siege is no like to be such a bad job for ye, after a'. Though ye should be driven oot o' the preceptory the morn, ye'll no gang empty-handed; and that same's a blessin. But here's to ye, father, and Gude send us mair peacefu' times;" saying this, mine host of "The Ship" cleared off the remainder of the tankard. On his replacing the latter on the table, brother Drinkhooly peered into the empty vessel with a half involuntary spirit of inquiry.

His host smiled. Then--"We maun replenish, I fancy," he said.

Father Drinkhooly simply nodded acquiescence, saying not a word.

In half a minute after, another tankard of claret reamed on the board, between mine host and his guest. By the time this second supply of the generous fluid was exhausted, brother Drinkhooly began to exhibit certain odd changes of manner. From being solemn and taciturn, he became energetic and talkative, thumping the table violently when he wished to be particularly impressive, and displaying, altogether, a boldness and vivacity which strangely contrasted with the quiet meekness of his demeanour but half an hour before. The claret then was doing its duty; for to its exciting influence were these changes in the moral man of brother Drinkhooly, of course, attributable.

It would not, we fear, much interest the reader to follow out in all its details the debauch now in progress of celebration by the landlord of "The Ship" and his worthy guest. Be it enough to say, that it finally ended in the latter's getting so overcome that he did not think it would be consistent either with his own character or the credit of the preceptory, to return to the latter until he had had previously, an hour or two's sleep.

"'Deed, I dare say ye'll no be the waur o't," said mine host, on brother Drinkhooly's suggesting the propriety of this proceeding, "for that claret's gey an' steeve. I fin thae twa jugs touchin my ain garret a wee thing, and it used to tak sax to do that. But I'm no so able to staun't noo, as I was wont."

This was certainly true; but, even yet, David was more than a match over the claret stoup for any two men in the county. His capacity in this way was extraordinary; and no contemptible proof of the fact was afforded on the present occasion; for, while the priest was all but completely prostrated, his host had not, to use his own phrase, "turned a hair;" although he had drank quantity for quantity with the vanquished churchman.

Always kind and attentive to the wants of his guests, and, from a fellow feeling, especially tender of those who were in the helpless condition of brother Drinkhooly, David, desiring the latter to take his arm, conducted, or rather, smuggled him into a small back bedroom, helped him off with his gown and shovel hat, and tumbled him into bed, where he left him, with a promise to awake him at the expiry of two hours.