If Professor Ross entered my room under evil auspices, it was not long
before he sent the birds the other way. For the first time, since my
childhood, I met a man of large and various knowledge; a man who had
spent his life in amassing information, and learning how to make the
most of it. A little too much perhaps there was of the second, and more
fruitful branch, of the sour-sweet tree. Once I had been fool enough to
fancy that some of my own little bopeeps at nature were original and
peculiar. To Thomas Kenwood, Farmer Huxtable, and even Mr. Shelfer, a
gardener, I had been quite an oracle as to the weather, the sky, and the
insects about. Moreover, in most of the books I had read, there were
such blunders, even in matters that lie on nature's doorsteps, that,
looking back at them, I thought I had crossed her threshold.
As the proverb has it, nature always avenges herself; and here was I, a
mere "gappermouth" (I use a Devonshire word), to be taught that I had
not yet cropped even a cud to chew. True, I did not expect (like Mr.
and Mrs. Shelfer) that a boiled caterpillar would become a live
butterfly; neither did I believe, with Farmer Huxtable, that hips and
haws foretell a hard winter, because God means them for the thrushes;
but I knew no more than they did the laws and principles of things. My
little knowledge was all shreds and patches. It did not cover even the
smallest subject. Odd things here and there I knew; but a person of
sound information knows the odd and the even as well. My observations
might truly be called my own; but instead of being peculiar to me,
nearly all of them had been anticipated centuries ago. I was but a
gipsey straying where an army had been.
All this I suspected in less than ten minutes from the Professor's
entrance; he did not leave me long in doubt about it. It is just to
myself to say that the discovery did not mortify me much. My little
observations had been made, partly from pure love of nature's doings,
partly through habits drawn from a darker spring. At first I had felt
no pleasure in them, but it could not long be so. Now they were mine as
much as ever, though a thousand shared them with me.
As the Professor laid bare my ignorance and my errors, and proved that
the little I did know was at second hand--which it certainly was not--I
attempted no reply; I was too young for argument, and too much
interested to be impatient. So he demolished my ham and myself, with
equal relish and equal elegance of handling. He seemed to have no
intention of doing either, but managed both incidentally, and almost
accidentally, while he opened his mental encyclopaedia.
At length, Isola, who was tired of lectures, such as she got and forgot
every day, felt that it was high time to assert her prerogative, and
come to my rescue.
"Come, Pappy, you fancy you know everything, don't you?"
He was just beginning to treat of mosses; and I knew that he was wrong
upon several points, but did not dare to say so.
"My dear child, of the million things I never shall discover, one is the
way to keep you at all in order."
"I should hope not, indeed. Come now, here is another thing you don't
know. How long did it take to boil this delicious ham? Clara knows,
and so do I."
"Upon that matter, I confess my total ignorance."
"Hear, hear! Pappy, you can lecture by the hour upon isothermic laws,
and fluids, and fibrine, and adipose deposits, and you can't tell how
long it took to set this delicate fat. I'll tell you what it is, Pappy,
if you ever snub me in lecture again before the junior sophists, as you
dared to do yesterday, I'll sing out, 'Ham, Pappy, ham!' and you'll see
how the girls will laugh."
"No novelty, my dear, for them to laugh at you. I fear you never will
learn anything but impertinence."
His words were light, and he strove to keep his manner the same; but his
eyes belied him.
Isola ran round, and administered her never-failing remedy. There was
that sweetness about her nobody could resist it. Returning to her seat,
she gave me a nod of triumph, and began again.
"Now, Papples, when you are good again, you shall have a real treat.
Clara will show you her cordetto, won't you, dear? It is twice as big
as yours, and more than twice as pretty."
I took it from my neck, where it had been throughout my illness. Isola
told me continually that it had saved my sight; and so old Cora devoutly
believed, crossing herself, and invoking fifty saints. Long afterwards
I found that Cora knew it to be the heart of the Blessed Virgin,
perpetuated in the material which her husband used. If so, it had been
multiplied as well.
Dr. Ross took my pretty gordit, and examined it narrowly, carrying it to
the window to get a stronger light.
"Beyond a doubt," he said at last, "it is the finest in Europe. I have
only seen one to compare with it, and that had a flaw in the centre.
Will you part with it, Miss Valence?"
"No; I have promised never to do that."
"Then I must say no more; but I should have been proud to add it to my
collection."
"To carry it about with you, you mean, Pappy. You know you are a
superstitious old Pappy, in spite of all your learning."
Weak as my eyes were, I could see the scowl of deep displeasure in his.
Isola was frightened: she knew she had gone too far. She did not even
dare to offer the kiss of peace. No more was said about it, and I
turned the conversation to some other subject. But when he rose to
depart, I found a pretext for keeping Isola with me.
"Good-bye for the present, Miss Valence," Dr. Ross said gracefully--he
did everything but scowl with an inborn grace--"I hope that your very
first journey in quest of natural history will terminate at my house. I
cannot show you much, but shall truly enjoy going over my little
collection with you whenever you find that your sight is strong enough.
Meanwhile, let me earnestly warn you to abstain from chemical
experiments"--this was the cause of my injury assigned by Mrs.
Shelfer--"until you have a competent director. Isola, good-bye. I will
send Cora for you in good time for tea. Your attendance at lecture will
be excused."
All my interest in the subjects he had discussed, and in his mode of
treating them, all my admiration of his shrewd intellectual face, did
not prevent my feeling it a relief when he was gone. He was not at all
like his children. About them there was something so winning and
unpretentious, few could help liking them at first sight. They did all
they could to please, but without any visible effort. But with the
Professor, in spite of all his elegance and politeness, I could not help
perceiving that he was not doing his best, that he scorned to put forth
his powers when there was neither antagonist nor (in his opinion) duly
qualified listener. Nevertheless I could have told him some things he
did not know concerning lichens and mosses.
When I was left with my favourite Isola, that gentle senior sophist
seemed by no means disconsolate at her Papa's departure. She loved him
and was proud of him, but there were times, as she told me, when she was
quite afraid of him.
"Would you believe it, dear, that I could be afraid of old Pappy?"--his
age was about four and forty--"It is very wicked I know, but how am I to
help it? Were you like that with your Papa, when he was alive?"
"No, I should think not. But I am not at all sure that he wasn't afraid
of me."
"Oh, how nice that must be! But it is my fault, isn't it?"
I could not well have told her, even if I had known it, that the fault
in such cases is almost always on the parent's side.