Фредерик Марриет
Jacob Faithful
“Oh, but the Dominie don’t care about pretty girls, father,” replied Tom; “he’s too learned and clever; he thinks about nothing but the moon, and Latin and Greek, and all that.”
“Who can say what’s under the skin, Tom? There’s no knowing what is, and what isn’t—Sall’s shoe for that.”
“Never heard of Sall’s shoe, father; that’s new to me.”
“Didn’t I ever tell you that, Tom?—Well, then, you shall have it now—that is, if all the company be agreeable.”
“Oh, yes,” cried Mary; “pray tell us.”
“Would you like to hear it, sir?”
“I never heard of Sall Sue in my life, and would fain hear her history,” replied the Dominie; “proceed, friend Dux.”
“Well, then, you must know when I was a-board of the Terp-sy-chore, there was a fore-topman, of the name of Bill Harness, a good sort of chap enough, but rather soft in the upper-works. Now, we’d been on the Jamaica station for some years, and had come home, and merry enough, and happy enough we were (those that were left of us), and we were spending our money like the devil. Bill Harness had a wife, who was very fond of he, and he was very fond of she, but she was a slatternly sort of a body, never tidy in her rigging, all adrift at all times, and what’s more, she never had a shoe up at heel, so she went by the name of Slatternly Sall, and the first lieutenant, who was a ’ticular sort of a chap, never liked to see her on deck, for you see she put her hair in paper on New Year’s day, and never changed it or took it out till the year came round again. However, be it as it may be, she loved Bill, and Bill loved she, and they were very happy together. A’ter all, it ain’t whether a woman’s tidy without that makes a man’s happiness; it depends upon whether she be right within; that is, if she be good-tempered, and obliging, and civil, and ’commodating, and so forth. A’ter the first day or two, person’s nothing—eyes get palled, like the cap-stern when the anchor’s up to the bows; but what a man likes is, not to be disturbed by vagaries, or gusts of temper. Well, Bill was happy—but one day he was devilish unhappy, because Sall had lost one of her shoes, which wasn’t to be wondered at, considering as how she was always slipshod. ‘Who has seen my wife’s shoe?’ says he. ‘Hang your wife’s shoe,’ said one, ‘it warn’t worth casting an eye upon;’ Still he cried out, ‘Who has seen my wife’s shoe?’ ‘I seed it,’ says another. ‘Where?’ says Bill. ‘I seed it down at heel,’ says the fellow. But Bill still hallooed out about his wife’s shoe, which it appeared she had dropped off her foot as she was going up the forecastle ladder to take the air a bit, just as it was dark. At last Bill made so much fuss about it that the ship’s company laughed, and all called out to each other, ‘Who has seen Sall’s shoe?—Have you got Sall’s shoe?’ and they passed the word fore and aft the whole evening, till they went to their hammocks. Notwithstanding, as Sall’s shoe was not forthcoming, the next morning Bill goes on the quarter-deck, and complains to the first lieutenant, as how he had lost Sall’s shoe. ‘Damn Sall’s shoe,’ said he, ‘haven’t I enough to look after without your wife’s confounded shoes, which can’t be worth twopence?’ Well, Bill argues that his wife had only one shoe left, and that won’t keep two feet dry, and begs the first lieutenant to order a search for it; but the first lieutenant turns away, and tells him to go to the devil, and all the men grin at Bill’s making such a fuss about nothing. So Bill at last goes up to the first lieutenant, and whispers something, and the first lieutenant booms him off with his speaking trumpet, as if he were making too free, in whispering to his commanding officer, and then sends for the master-at-arms. ‘Collier,’ says he, ‘this man has lost his wife’s shoe: let a search be made for it immediately—take all the ship’s boys, and look everywhere for it; if you find it bring it up to me.’ So away goes the master-at-arms with his cane, and collects all the boys to look for Sall’s shoe—and they go peeping about the maindeck, under the guns, and under the hen-coops, and in the sheep-pen, and everywhere; now and then getting a smart slap with the cane behind, upon the taut part of their trowsers, to make them look sharp, until they all wished Sall’s shoe at Old Nick, and her too, and Bill in the bargain. At last one of the boys picks it out of the manger, where it had lain all the night, poked up and down by the noses of the pigs, who didn’t think it eatable, although it might have smelt human-like; the fact was, it was the same boy who had picked up Sall’s shoe when she dropped it, and had shied it forward. It sartainly did not seem to be worth all the trouble, but howsomever it was taken aft by the master-at-arms, and laid on the capstern head. Then Bill steps out and takes the shoe before the first lieutenant, and cuts it open, and from between the lining pulls out four ten pound notes, which Sall had sewn up there by way of security; and the first lieutenant tells Bill he was a great fool to trust his money in the shoe of a woman who always went slipshod, and tells him to go about his business, and stow his money away in a safer place next time. A’ter, if any thing was better than it looked to be, the ship’s company used always to say it was like Sall’s shoe. There you have it all.”
“Well,” says Stapleton, taking the pipe out of his mouth, “I know a fact, much of a muchness with that, which happened to me when I was below the river, tending a ship at Sheerness—for at one time, d’ye see, I used to ply there. She was an old fifty-gun ship, called the Adamant, if I recollect right. One day the first lieutenant, who, like yourn, was a mighty particular sort of chap, was going round the maindeck, and he sees an old pair of canvas trowsers stowed in under the trunnion of one of the guns. So says he, ‘Whose be these?’ Now, no man would answer, because they knowed very well that it would be as good as a fortnight in the black list. With that, the first lieutenant bundles them out of the port, and away they floats astern with the tide. It was about half-an-hour after that, that I comes off with the milk for the wardroom mess, and a man named Will Heaviside says to me, ‘Stapleton,’ says he, ‘the first lieutenant has thrown my canvas trowsers overboard, and be damned to him; now I must have them back.’ ‘But where be they?’ says I: ‘I suppose down at the bottom by this time, and the flat-fish dubbing their noses into them.’ ‘No, no,’ says he, ‘they wo’n’t never sink, but float till eternity; they be gone down with the tide, and they will come back again; only you keep a sharp look-out for them, and I’ll give you five shillings if you bring them.’ Well, I seed little chance of ever seeing them again, or of my seeing five shillings, but as it so happened next tide, the very ’denticle pair of trowsers comes up staring me in the face. I pulls them in, and takes them to Will Heaviside, who appears to be mightily pleased, and gives me the money. ‘I wouldn’t have lost them for ten, no, not fur twenty pounds,’ says he. ‘At all events you’ve paid me more than they are worth,’ says I. ‘Have I?’ says he; ‘stop a bit;’ and he outs with his knife, and rips open the waistband, and pulls out a piece of linen, and out of the piece of linen he pulls out a child’s caul. ‘There,’ says he, ‘now you knows why the trowsers wouldn’t sink, and I’ll leave you to judge whether they ar’n’t worth five shillings.’ That’s my story.”
“Well, I can’t understand how it is, that a caul should keep people up,” observed old Tom.
“At all events, a call makes people come up fast enough on board a man-of-war, father.”
“That’s true enough, but I’m talking of a child’s caul, not of a boatswain’s, Tom.”
“I’ll just tell you how it is,” replied Stapleton, who had recommenced smoking; “it’s human natur’.”
“What is your opinion, sir?” said Mary to the Dominie.
“Maiden,” replied the Dominie, taking his pipe out of his mouth, “I opine that it’s a vulgar error. Sir Thomas Brown, I think it is, hath the same idea; many and strange were the superstitions which have been handed down by our less enlightened ancestors—all of which mists have been cleared away by the powerful rays of truth.”
“Well, but, master, if a vulgar error saves a man from Davy Jones’s locker, ar’n’t it just as well to sew it up in the waistband of your trowsers?”
“Granted, good Dux; if it would save a man; but how is it possible? it is contrary to the first elements of science.”
“What matter does that make, provided it holds a man up?”
“Friend Dux, thou art obtuse.”
“Well, perhaps I am, as I don’t know what that is.”
“But, father, don’t you recollect,” interrupted Tom, “what the parson said last Sunday, that faith saved men? Now, Master Dominie, may it not be faith that a man has in the caul which may save him?”
“Young Tom, thou art astute.”
“Well, perhaps I am, as father said, for I don’t know what that is. You knock us all down with your dictionary.”
“Well I do love to hear people make use of such hard words,” said Mary, looking at the Dominie. “How very clever you must be, sir! I wonder whether I shall ever understand them?”
“Nay, if thou wilt, I will initiate—sweet maiden, wilt steal an hour or so to impregnate thy mind with the seeds of learning, which, in so fair a soil, must needs bring forth good fruit!”
“That’s a fine word, that impregnate—will you give us the English of it, sir?” said young Tom to the Dominie.
“It is English, Tom, only the old gentleman razeed it a little. The third ship in the lee line of the Channel fleet was a eighty, called the Impregnable, but the old gentleman knows more about books than sea matters.”
“A marvellous misconception,” quoth the Dominie.
“There’s another,” cried Tom, laughing; “that must be a three-decker. Come, father, here’s the bottle, you must take another glass to wash that down.”
“Pray what was the meaning of that last long word, sir,” said Mary, taking the Dominie by the arm, “mis—something.”
“The word,” replied the Dominie, “is a compound from conception, borrowed from the Latin tongue implying conceiving; and the mis prefixed, which negatives or reverses the meaning; misconception, therefore, implies not to conceive. I can make you acquainted with many others of a similar tendency as mis-conception; videlicet, mis-apprehension, mis-understanding, mis-contriving mis-applying, mis—”
“Dear me, what a many misses,” cried Mary, “and do you know them all?”
“Indeed do I,” replied the Dominie, “and many, many more are treasured in my memory, quod nunc describere tongum est.”
“I’d no idea that the old gentleman was given to running after the girls in that way,” said old Tom to Stapleton.
“Human natur’,” replied the other.
“No more did I,” continued Mary; “I shall have nothing to say to him;” and she drew off her chair a few inches from that of the Dominie.
“Maiden,” quoth the Dominie, “thou art under a mistake.”
“Another miss, I declare,” cried Tom, laughing.
“What an old Turk!” continued Mary, getting further off.
“Nay, then, I will not reply,” said the Dominie indignantly, putting down his pipe, leaning back on his chair, and pulling out his great red handkerchief, which he applied to his nose, and produced a sound that made the windows of the little parlour vibrate for some seconds.
“I say, master Tom, don’t you make too free with your betters,” said old Tom, when he saw the Dominie affronted.
“Nay,” replied the Dominie, “there’s an old adage which saith, ‘As the old cock crows, so doth the young.’ Wherefore didst thou set him the example?”
“Very true, old gentleman, and I axes your pardon, and here’s my hand upon it.”
“And so do I, sir, and here’s my hand upon it,” said young Tom, extending his hand on the Dominie’s other side.
“Friend Dux, and thou, young Tom, I do willingly accept thy proffered reconciliation; knowing, as I well do, that there may be much mischief in thy composition, but naught of malice.” The Dominie extended his hands, and shook both those offered to him warmly.
“There,” said old Tom, “now my mind’s at ease, as old Pigtown said.”
“I know not the author whom thou quotest from, good Dux.”
“Author!—I never said he was an author; he was only captain of a schooner, trading between the islands, that I sailed with a few weeks in the West Indies.”
“Perhaps, then, you will relate to the company present the circumstances which took place to put old Pegtop’s—(I may not be correct in the name)—but whoever it may be—”
“Pigtown, master.”
“Well, then—that put old Pigtown’s mind at ease—for I am marvellously amused with thy narrations, which do pass away the time most agreeably, good Dux.”
“With all my heart, old gentleman; but first let us fill up our tumblers. I don’t know how it is, but it does appear to me that grog drinks better out of a glass than out of metal and if it wasn’t that Tom is so careless—and the dog has no respect for crockery any more than persons—I would have one or two on board for particular service; but I’ll think about that, and hear what the old woman has to say on the subject. Now to my yarn. D’ye see, old Pigtown commanded a little schooner, which plied between the isles, and he had been in her for a matter of forty years, and was as well-known as Port Royal Tom.”
“Who might Port Royal Tom be?” inquired the Dominie; “a relation of yours?”
“I hope not, master, for I wanted none of his acquaintance; he was a shark about twenty feet long who rode guard in the harbour, to prevent the men-of-war’s men from deserting, and was pensioned by government.”
“Pensioned by government! nay, but that soundeth strangely. I have heard that pensions have been most lavishly bestowed, but not that it extended so far. Truly it must have been a sinecure.”
“I don’t know what that last may be,” replied old Tom, “but I heard our boatswain, in the Minerve, who talked politics a bit, say, ‘as how half the pensions were held by a pack of damned sharks;’ but in this here shark’s case, it wasn’t in money, master; but he’d regular rations of bullock’s liver to persuade him to remain in the harbour, and no one dare swim on shore when he was cruising round and round the ships. Well, old Pigtown, with his white trousers and straw hat, red nose and big belly, was as well-known as could be, and was a capital old fellow for remembering and executing commissions, provided you gave him the money first; if not, he always took care to forget them. Old Pigtown had a son, a little dark or so, which proved that his mother wasn’t quite as fair as a lily, and this son was employed in a drogher, that is, a small craft which goes round to the bays of the island, and takes off the sugars to the West India traders. One fine day the drogher was driven out to sea, and never heard of a’terwards. Now, old Pigtown was very anxious about what had come of his son, and day after day expected he would come back again; but he never did, for very good reasons, as you shall hear by-and-by; and every one knowing old Pigtown, and he knowing everybody, it was at least fifty times a day that the question was put to him, ‘Well, Pigtown, have you heard anything of your son?’ And fifty times a day he would reply, ‘No; and my mind’s but ill at ease.’ Well, it was two or three months afterwards, that when I was in the schooner with him, as we lay becalmed between the islands, with the sun frizzing our wigs, and the planks so hot that you couldn’t walk without your shoes, that we hooked a large shark which came bowling under our counter, got him on board and cut him up. When we opened his inside, what should I see but something shining. I took it out, and sure enough it was a silver watch. So I hands it to old Pigtown. He looks at it very ’tentively, opens the outside case, reads the maker’s name, and then shuts it up again. ‘This here watch,’ says he, ‘belonged to my son Jack. I bought it of a chap in a South whaler for three dollars and a roll of pigtail, and a very good watch it was, though I perceive it to be stopped now. Now, d’ye see, it’s all clear—the drogher must have gone down in a squall—the shark must have picked up my son Jack, and must have digested his body, but has not been able to digest his watch. Now I knows what’s become of him, and so—my mind’s at ease.’”
“Well,” observed old Stapleton, “I agrees with old Poptown, or whatever his name might be, that it were better to know the worst at once than to be kept on the worry all your days; I consider it’s nothing but human natur’. Why, if one has a bad tooth, which is the best plan, to have it out with one good wrench, or to be eternally tormented, night and day.”
“Thou speakest wisely, friend Stapleton, and like a man of resolve—the anticipation is often, if not always, more painful than the reality. Thou knowest, Jacob, how often I have allowed a boy to remain unbuttoned in the centre of the room for an hour previous to the application of the birch—and it was with the consideration that the impression would be greater upon his mind than even upon his nether parts. All of the feelings in the human breast, that of suspense is—”
“Worse than hanging,” interrupted young Tom.
“Even so, boy (cluck, cluck), an apt comparison, seeing that in suspense you are hanging, as it were, in the very region of doubt, without being able to obtain a footing even upon conjecture. Nay, we may further add another simile, although not so well borne out, which is, that the agony of suspense doth stop the breath of a man for the time, as hanging doth stop it altogether, so that it may be truly said, that suspense is put an end to by suspending.” (cluck, cluck.)
“And now that you’ve got rid of all that, master, suppose you fill up your pipe,” observed old Tom.
“And I will fill up your tumbler, sir,” said Mary; “for you must be dry with talking such hard words.”
The Dominie this time made no objection, and again enveloped Mary and himself in a cloud of smoke, through which his nose loomed like an Indiaman in a Channel fog.
Chapter Twenty Six
The Dominie’s bosom grows too warm; so the party and the frost break up—I go with the stream and against it; make money both ways—Coolness between Mary and me—No chance of a Thames’ edition of Abelard and Eloise—Love, learning, and Latin all lost in a fit of the sulks
“I say, Master Stapleton, suppose we were to knock out half a port,” observed old Tom, after a silence of two minutes; “for the old gentleman blows a devil of a cloud: that is, if no one has an objection.” Stapleton gave a nod of assent, and I rose and put the upper window down a few inches. “Ay, that’s right, Jacob; now we shall see what Miss Mary and he are about. You’ve been enjoying the lady all to yourself, master,” continued Tom, addressing the Dominie.
“Verily and truly,” replied the Dominie, “even as a second Jupiter.”
“Never heard of him.”
“I presume not; still, Jacob will tell thee that the history is to be found in Ovid’s Metamorphoses.”
“Never heard of the country, master.”
“Nay, friend Dux, it is a book, not a country, in which thou may’st read how Jupiter at first descended unto Semele in a cloud.”
“And pray, where did he come from, master?”
“He came from heaven.”
“The devil he did. Well, if ever I gets there, I mean to stay.”
“It was love, all-powerful love, which induced him, maiden,” replied the Dominie, turning, with a smiling eye, to Mary.
“’Bove my comprehension altogether,” replied old Tom.
“Human natur’,” muttered Stapleton, with the pipe still between his lips.
“Not the first vessels that have run foul in a fog,” observed young Tom.
“No, boy; but generally there ar’n’t much love between them at those times. But, come, now that we can breathe again, suppose I give you a song. What shall it be, young woman, a sea ditty, or something spooney?”
“Oh, something about love, if you’ve no objection, sir,” said Mary, appealing to the Dominie.
“Nay, it pleaseth me maiden, and I am of thy mind. Friend Dux, let it be Anacreontic.”
“What the devil’s that?” cried old Tom, lifting up his eyes, and taking the pipe out of his mouth.
“Nothing of your own, father, that’s clear; but something to borrow, for it’s to be on tick,” replied Tom.
“Nay, boy, I would have been understood that the song should refer to women or wine.”
“Both of which are to his fancy,” observed young Tom to me, aside.
“Human natur’,” quaintly observed Stapleton.
“Well, then, you shall have your wish. I’ll give you one that might be warbled in a lady’s chamber without stirring the silk curtains:—
“Oh! the days are gone when beauty bright
My heart’s chain wove,
When my dream of life from morn to night
Was Love—still Love.
New hope may bloom, and days may come,
Of milder, calmer beam,
But there’s nothing half so sweet in life
As Love’s young dream;
Oh! there’s nothing half so sweet in life,
As Love’s young dream.”
The melody of the song, added to the spirits he had drunk and Mary’s eyes beaming on him, had a great effect upon the Dominie. As old Tom warbled out, so did the pedagogue gradually approach the chair of Mary; and as gradually entwine her waist with his own arm, his eyes twinkling brightly on her. Old Tom, who perceived it, had given me and Tom a wink, as he repeated the two last lines; and then we saw what was going on, we burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. “Boys! boys!” said the Dominie, starting up, “thou hast awakened me, by thy boisterous mirth, from a sweet musing created by the harmony of friend Dux’s voice. Neither do I discover the source of thy cachinnation, seeing that the song is amatory and not comic. Still, it may not be supposed, at thy early age, that thou canst be affected with what thou art too young to feel. Pr’ythee continue, friend Dux, and, boys, restrain thy mirth.”
“Though the bard to a purer fame may soar
When wild youth’s past,
Though he win the wise, who frowned before,
To smile at last,
He’ll never meet a joy so sweet
In all his noon of fame,
As when first he sung to woman’s ear
His soul-felt flame;
And at every close she blush’d to hear
The once-lov’d name.”
At the commencement of this verse the Dominie appeared to be on his guard; but gradually moved by the power of song, he dropped his elbow on the table, and his pipe underneath it; his forehead sank into his broad palm, and he remained motionless. The verse ended, and the Dominie, forgetting all around him, softly ejaculated, without looking up, “Eheu! Mary.”
“Did you speak to me, sir?” said Mary, who, perceiving us tittering, addressed the Dominie with a half-serious, half-mocking air.
“Speak, maiden? nay, I spoke not; yet thou mayest give me my pipe, which apparently hath been abducted while I was listening to the song.”
“Abducted! that’s a new word; but it means smashed into twenty pieces, I suppose,” observed young Tom. “At all events, your pipe is, for you let it fall between your legs.”
“Never mind,” said Mary, rising from her chair, and going to the cupboard; “here’s another, sir.”
“Well, master, am I to finish, or have you had enough of it?”
“Proceed, friend Dux, proceed; and believe that I am all attention.”
“Oh, that hallowed form is ne’er forgot
Which first love trac’d,
Still it lingering haunts the greenest spot
On memory’s waste.
’Twas odour fled as soon as shed,
’Twas memory’s winged dream,
’Twas a light that ne’er can shine again
On life’s dull stream;
Oh, ’twas light that ne’er can shine again
On life’s dull stream.”
“Nay,” said the Dominie, again abstracted, “the metaphor is not just. ‘Life’s dull stream.’ ‘Lethe tacitus amnis,’ as Lucan hath it; but the stream of life flows—ay, flows rapidly—even in my veins. Doth not the heart throb and beat—yea, strongly—peradventure too forcibly against my better judgment? ‘Confiteor misere molle cor esse mihi,’ as Ovid saith. Yet must it not prevail! Shall one girl be victorious over seventy boys? Shall I, Dominie Dobbs, desert my post?—Again succumb to—I will even depart, that I may be at my desk at matutinal hours.”
“You don’t mean to leave us, sir?” said Mary, taking the Dominie’s arm.
“Even so, fair maiden, for it waxeth late, and I have my duties to perform,” said the Dominie, rising from his chair.
“Then you will promise to come again.”
“Peradventure I may.”
“If you do not promise me that you will, I will not let you go now.”
“Verily, maiden—”
“Promise,” interrupted Mary.
“Truly, maiden—”
“Promise,” cried Mary.
“In good sooth, maiden—”
“Promise,” reiterated Mary, pulling the Dominie towards her chair.
“Nay, then, I do promise, since thou wilt have it so,” replied the Dominie.
“And when will you come?”
“I will not tarry,” replied the Dominie; “and now good night to all.”
The Dominie shook hands with us, and Mary lighted him downstairs. I was much pleased with the resolution and sense of his danger thus shown by my worthy preceptor, and hoped that he would have avoided Mary in future, who evidently wished to make a conquest of him for her own amusement and love of admiration; but still I felt that the promise exacted would be fulfilled, and I was afraid that a second meeting, and that perhaps not before witnesses, would prove mischievous. I made up my mind to speak to Mary on the subject as soon as I had an opportunity, and insist upon her not making a fool of the worthy old man. Mary remained below a much longer time than was necessary, and when she re-appeared and looked at me, as if for a smile of approval, I turned from her with a contemptuous air. She sat down, and looked confused. Tom was also silent, and paid her no attention. A quarter of an hour passed, when he proposed to his father that they should be off, and the party broke up. Leaving Mary silent and thoughtful, and old Stapleton finishing his pipe, I took my candle and went to bed.
The next day the moon changed, the weather changed, and a rapid thaw took place. “It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good,” observed old Stapleton; “we watermen will have the river to ourselves again, and the hucksters must carry their gingerbread-nuts to another market.” It was, however, three or four days before the river was clear of the ice, so as to permit the navigation to proceed; and during that time, I may as well observe, that there was dissension between Mary and me. I showed her that I resented her conduct, and at first she tried to pacify me; but finding that I held out longer than she expected, she turned round, and was affronted in return. Short words and no lessons were the order of the day; and as each party seemed determined to hold out, there was little prospect of a reconciliation. In this she was the greatest sufferer, as I quitted the house after breakfast, and did not return until dinner time. At first old Stapleton plied very regularly, and took all the fares; but about a fortnight after we had worked together, he used to leave me to look after employment, and remain at the public-house. The weather was now fine, and, after the severe frost, it changed so rapidly that most of the trees were in leaf, and the horse-chestnuts in full blossom. The wherry was in constant demand, and every evening I handed from four to six shillings over to old Stapleton. I was delighted with my life, and should have been perfectly happy if it had not been for my quarrel with Mary still continuing, she as resolutely refraining from making advances as I. How much may life be embittered by dissension with those you live with, even when there is no very warm attachment; the constant grating together worries and annoys, and although you may despise the atoms, the aggregate becomes insupportable. I had no pleasure in the house; and the evenings, which formerly passed so agreeably, were now a source of vexation, from being forced to sit in company with one with whom I was not on good terms. Old Stapleton was seldom at home till late, and this made it still worse. I was communing with myself one night, as I had my eyes fixed on my book, whether I should make the first advances, when Mary, who had been quietly at work, broke the silence by asking me what I was reading. I replied in a quiet tone.
“Jacob,” said she, in continuation, “I think you have used me very ill to humble me in this manner. It was your business to make it up first.”
“I am not aware that I have been in the wrong,” replied I.
“I do not say that you have; but what matter does that make? You ought to give way to a woman.”
“Why so?”
“Why so! don’t the whole world do so? Do you not offer everything first to a woman? Is it not her right?”
“Not when she is in the wrong, Mary.”
“Yes, when she’s in the wrong, Jacob; there’s no merit in doing it when she’s in the right.”
“I think otherwise; at all events, it depends on how much she has been in the wrong, and I consider you have shown a bad heart, Mary.”
“A bad heart! in what way, Jacob?”
“In realising the fable of the boys and the frogs with the poor old Dominie, forgetting that what may be sport to you is death to him.”
“You don’t mean to say that he’ll die of love,” replied Mary, laughing.
“I should hope not: but you may contrive, and you have tried all in your power, to make him very wretched.”
“And, pray, how do you know that I do not like the old gentleman, Jacob? You appear to think that a girl is to fall in love with nobody but yourself. Why should I not love an old man with so much learning? I have been told that old husbands are much prouder of their wives than young ones, and pay them more attention, and don’t run after other women. How do you know that I am not serious?”
“Because I know your character, Mary, and am not to be deceived. If you mean to defend yourself in that way, we had better not talk any more.”
“Lord, how savage you are! then, suppose I did pay the old gentleman any attention. Did the young ones pay me any? Did either you, or your precious friend, Mr Tom, even speak to me?”
“No; we saw how you were employed, and we both hate a jilt.”
“Oh, you do. Very well, sir; just as you please. I may make both your hearts ache for this some day or another.”
“Forewarned, forearmed, Mary; and I shall take care that they are both forewarned as well as myself. As I perceive that you are so decided, I shall say no more. Only, for your own sake, and your own happiness, I caution you. Recollect your mother, Mary, and recollect your mother’s death.”
