I restrained myself, however, at the moment, and answered him in, for
me, comparatively mild terms.
"Mr Mawley," said I, "you have no more imagination than a turnip-top!
You must possess the taste of a Goth or Vandal, to turn such noble lines
into your low ridicule!"
He did not mind my retort a bit, however. He seemed to think it beneath
his notice; for, he only said "Thank you, Lorton!" and dropped back
behind us again with Bessie Dasher, while Seraphine joined company with
little Miss Pimpernell--Min and I being still together in front.
By-and-by our talk was resumed in the same strain from which the
curate's interpellation had diverted it. I had just spoken of Gay the
fabulist. I told her of his sad history:--how it was shown in the
bitter epitaph which he had composed for his own tomb--
"Life's a jest, and all things show it;
I _thought_ so once, and now I _know_ it!"
From this we drifted on to Gray's Elegy, through the near similarity of
the two poets' names.
"I think," said Min, "that that unadded verse of his which is always
left out of the published poem, is nicer than any of the regular ones;
for it touches on two of my favourites, the violet and the dear little
robin redbreast!"
"You mean, I suppose," said I, "the one commencing--
"`There, scatter'd oft, the earliest of the year--'"
"Yes," said Min, continuing it in her low, sweet voice--
"`By hands unseen, are showers of violets found;
The redbreast loves to build and warble there,
And little footsteps lightly print the ground.'"
"You like violets, then?" I asked. "I think you told me you did,
though, before."
"Yes," she said impulsively, "I love them, I love them, I love them!"
"Ah!" thought I to myself, determining that she should never from
henceforth be without an ample supply of violets, if I could help it,
"Ah, I wish you would love _me_!" But, I did not give utterance to the
thought, contenting myself with keeping up the conversation respecting
the Elegy. "It is generally considered," said I aloud, "that the best
verse of Gray's is that in which he says--
"`Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast,
The little tyrant of his fields withstood,
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood!'"
"Hullo, Lorton!" shouted out Mr Mawley again close at my back, when I
had believed him to be some distance off. "Hullo, Lorton! Don't you
get into heroics, my boy. Does not the `noble bard' make the Prince of
Denmark say, that the dust of Alexander the Great might have served to
fill the bung of a cask and that--
"`Imperial Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away!'"
This was too much of a good thing.