THE SYSTEM ENCOUNTERS THE WILD OATS
SPECIAL PLEA
The rumour circulated that Sir Austin Feverel, the recluse of
Raynham, the rank misogynist, the rich baronet, was in town, looking
out a bride for his only son and uncorrupted heir. Doctor Benjamin
Bairam was the excellent authority. Doctor Bairam had safely
delivered Mrs. Deborah Gossip of this interesting bantling, which
was forthwith dandled in dozens of feminine laps. Doctor Bairam
could boast the first interview with the famous recluse. He had it
from his own lips that the object of the baronet was to look out a
bride for his only son and uncorrupted heir; "and," added the
doctor, "she'll be lucky who gets him." Which was interpreted to
mean, that he would be a catch; the doctor probably intending to
allude to certain extraordinary difficulties in the way of a choice.
A demand was made on the publisher of THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP for all
his outstanding copies. Conventionalities were defied. A
summer-shower of cards fell on the baronet's table.
He had few male friends. He shunned the Clubs as nests of scandal.
The cards he contemplated were mostly those of the sex, with the
husband, if there was a husband, evidently dragged in for
propriety's sake. He perused the cards and smiled. He knew their
purpose. What terrible light Thompson, and Bairam had thrown on some
of them! Heavens! in what a state was the blood of this Empire.
Before commencing his campaign he called on two ancient intimates,
Lord Heddon, and his distant cousin Darley Absworthy, both Members
of Parliament, useful men, though gouty, who had sown in their time
a fine crop of wild oats, and advocated the advantage of doing so,
seeing that they did not fancy themselves the worse for it. He found
one with an imbecile son and the other with consumptive daughters.
"So much," he wrote in the Note-book, "for the Wild Oats theory!"
Darley was proud of his daughters' white and pink skins. "Beautiful
complexions," he called them. The eldest was in the market,
immensely admired. Sir Austin Was introduced to her. She talked
fluently and sweetly. A youth not on his guard, a simple schoolboy
youth, or even a man, might have fallen in love with her, she was so
affable and fair. There was something poetic about her. And she was
quite well, she said, the baronet frequently questioning her on that
point. She intimated that she was robust; but towards the close of
their conversation her hand would now and then travel to her side,
and she breathed painfully an instant, saying, "Isn't it odd? Dora,
Adela, and myself, we all feel the same queer sensation--about the
heart, I think it is--after talking much."
Sir Austin nodded and blinked sadly, exclaiming to his soul, "Wild
oats! wild oats!"
He did not ask permission to see Dora and Adela.
Lord Heddon vehemently preached wild oats.
"It's all nonsense, Feverel," he said, "about bringing up a lad out
of the common way. He's all the better for a little racketing when
he's green--feels his bone and muscle--learns to know the world.
He'll never be a man if he hasn't played at the old game one time in
his life, and the earlier the better. I've always found the best
fellows were wildish once. I don't care what he does when he's a
greenhorn; besides, he's got an excuse for it then. You can't expect
to have a man, if he doesn't take a man's food. You'll have a
milksop. And, depend upon it, when he does break out he'll go to the
devil, and nobody pities him. Look what those fellows, the grocers,
do when they get hold of a young--what d'ye call 'em?--apprentice.
They know the scoundrel was born with a sweet tooth. Well! they give
him the run of the shop, and in a very short time he soberly deals
out the goods, a devilish deal too wise to abstract a morsel even
for the pleasure of stealing. I know you have contrary theories. You
hold that the young grocer should have a soul above sugar. It won't
do! Take my word for it, Feverel, it's a dangerous experiment, that
of bringing up flesh and blood in harness. No colt will bear it, or
he's a tame beast. And look you: take it on medical grounds. Early
excesses the frame will recover from: late ones break the
constitution. There's the case in a nutshell. How's your son?"
"Sound and well!" replied Sir Austin. "And yours?"
"Oh, Lipscombe's always the same!" Lord Heddon sighed peevishly.
"He's quiet--that's one good thing; but there's no getting the
country to take him, so I must give up hopes of that."
Lord Lipscombe entering the room just then, Sir Austin surveyed him,
and was not astonished at the refusal of the country to take him.
"Wild oats!" he thought, as he contemplated the headless,
degenerate, weedy issue and result.
Both Darley Absworthy and Lord Heddon spoke of the marriage of their
offspring as a matter of course. "And if I were not a coward," Sir
Austin confessed to himself, "I should stand forth and forbid the
banns! This universal ignorance of the inevitable consequence of
sin is frightful! The wild oats plea is a torpedo that seems to have
struck the world, and rendered it morally insensible." However, they
silenced him. He was obliged to spare their feelings on a subject to
him so deeply sacred. The healthful image of his noble boy rose
before him, a triumphant living rejoinder to any hostile argument.
He was content to remark to his doctor, that he thought the third
generation of wild oats would be a pretty thin crop!
Families against whom neither Thompson lawyer nor Bairam physician
could recollect a progenitorial blot, either on the male or female
side, were not numerous. "Only," said the doctor, "you really must
not be too exacting in these days, my dear Sir Austin. It is
impossible to contest your principle, and you are doing mankind
incalculable service in calling its attention to this the gravest of
its duties: but as the stream of civilization progresses we must be
a little taken in the lump, as it were. The world is, I can assure
you--and I do not look only above the surface, you can believe--the
world is awakening to the vital importance of the question."
"Doctor," replied Sir Austin, "if you had a pure-blood Arab barb
would you cross him with a screw?"
"Decidedly not," said the doctor.
"Then permit me to say, I shall employ every care to match my son
according to his merits," Sir Austin returned. "I trust the world is
awakening, as you observe. I have been to my publisher, since my
arrival in town, with a manuscript 'Proposal for a New System of
Education of our British Youth,' which may come in opportunely. I
think I am entitled to speak on that subject."
"Certainly," said the doctor. "You will admit, Sir Austin, that,
compared with continental nations--our neighbours, for instance--we
shine to advantage, in morals, as in everything else. I hope you
admit that?"
"I find no consolation in shining by comparison with a lower
standard," said the baronet. "If I compare the enlightenment of your
views--for you admit my principle--with the obstinate incredulity of
a country doctor's, who sees nothing of the world, you are hardly
flattered, I presume?"
Doctor Bairam would hardly be flattered at such a comparison,
assuredly, he interjected.
"Besides," added the baronet, "the French make no pretences, and
thereby escape one of the main penalties of hypocrisy. Whereas
we!--but I am not their advocate, credit me. It is better, perhaps,
to pay our homage to virtue. At least it delays the spread of entire
corruptness."
Doctor Bairam wished the baronet success, and diligently endeavoured
to assist his search for a mate worthy of the pure-blood barb, by
putting several mamas, whom he visited, on the alert.