THE FRIENDS’ PARTY.
A few days after came an invitation to Woodburn Grange, from Mrs.
Heritage, to a party at Fair Manor. It was a thing that created no
little consternation.
“Oh!” said Letty, “I cannot really go! I dare not go for the world!
To think only of another such a sermon! It would kill me.”
“No,” said Ann, anxiously, “you, at all events, cannot go, dearest
Letty; and I don’t feel to like it by any means myself. What are
we to do? what shall we say? And how very odd—the Heritages don’t
profess to give parties; they keep an open house, as it were. It is
very strange—what can it mean?”
“It means,” said Mr. Woodburn, “I dare say, that Mrs. Heritage feels
that she left a gloomy impression the other day behind her, and she
is desirous of effacing it by a pleasant party at Fair Manor.”
“A pleasant party at Fair Manor! Oh, dear father, how _can_ a Quaker
party be a pleasant party?” exclaimed Letty, walking quickly about
the room. And then, laughing in her usual gaiety, “Only to imagine a
party of Friends, who neither sing, nor dance, nor play any music,
nor any game but fox-and-goose, or drafts or dominoes, and who make
such frightful addresses—being a _pleasant_ party! Why, to them a
letter from a distance, or a very dull poem indeed, is an excitement.
Think of David and Dorothy Qualm, helping to make up a pleasant
party! But, really, it is a dilemma! What is to be done?”
“I am sure I don’t know,” said Mrs. Woodburn. “I would not for the
world offend dear Mrs. Heritage, nor dear Miss Heritage, they are so
good, and, spite of that unlucky sermon, Mrs. Heritage is so wise and
remarkable a woman. I think, my dear, you and I and George may go,
and let Ann and Letty be gone out. They can go somewhere for a few
days.”
“No, no,” said Mr. Woodburn, “I don’t like that sort of women’s
subterfuges, to get out of a disagreeable invitation—they are little
better than falsehoods. I will tell you now how it will be. It will
be a very pleasant and unique affair out in the grounds—they are
very pleasant grounds—and you will see, Mrs. Heritage won’t preach a
single word. She means to do the kind and restoring thing. We will
all go, and be jolly.”
“Jolly!” “Oh, dear father!” “Oh, dear husband!” resounded all round
Mr. Woodburn from the ladies. “What an idea! Jolly at a Friends’
tea-drinking!”
Even sobersided Ann, as her father called her, was excessively merry
at her father’s notion of a pleasant party.
“Why, dear father,” said Ann, “though I admit that the Friends are
very estimable people, one cannot call them entertaining. I think
they are the dullest of people.”
“By no means,” said Mr. Woodburn; “not half so dull as your genuine
aristocracy. Now, in my younger days, I spent a good deal of time
in London. I had introductions to much high aristocratic society,
through my neighbour, Lord Manvers, and I must say that duller
society I never was in.”
“Oh, no! that is impossible,” said Letty, all wonder. “Why, the
aristocracy have all sorts of amusements. In the country, hunting and
racing. In town, theatres, operas, concerts; music and dancing, and
the finest singing, at their own parties. Their London season is a
perfect round and whirl of pleasures, according to all that I ever
heard or read.”
“But I am not talking,” said Mr. Woodburn, “of their pleasures and
amusements; I am talking of their society. They give you good dinners
and good wine, I grant you, and you have all that you say—music, and
dancing, and fine singing. You have great crowds of fine and titled
people of whom you learn to know nothing but their fine clothes, and
fine jewels, and fine outsides. At their more select and domestic
parties—dinner-parties, say—all is very outwardly agreeable, polite,
and even, to a casual eye, unassuming, for such great people; but,
my dear girls, I tell you that, notwithstanding, aristocratic
society is the dullest of all society. Spite of that seeming ease
and non-pretence, there is a world of real resting upon their own
self-consequence and greatness of station. Try to break a little
through that soft and shining surface by a little of that familiarity
which is quite allowable in the middle ranks of life, and you will
soon feel that there is an invisible but not impalpable division
betwixt you and them. It is what a clear glass window must be to a
bird that flies against it, thinking it air. You cannot get beyond a
specious, arm’s-length acquaintance with these apparently so modest
and pleasant people.
“A country yeoman may say of the aristocracy, as Northcote the
painter says, as regards his profession: ‘An artist may honour them
as patrons; but to imagine that he can hold communion with them, on a
footing of friendship, is a moral misdemeanour, for which he ought to
be soundly whipped.’
“Try to introduce a topic of more than lightest and most gossipping
interest, and see the effect. Instead of the warm kindling up of
a truly interesting and ennobling conversation, you produce a
deep silence. So many are the topics in those ranks, which, from
political and other causes, would be offensive to some one or
other, that all really important topics are tabooed. These gay and
speciously pleasant people dare not speak their own minds in society.
There may be peculiar and close little cliques in which they do; but
in my time it was well known that there were not above three or four
aristocratic houses in London in which there was any real freedom of
discussion. You met at many of them men of science, men high in the
Church and theology, men and women famous in letters, but they were
as dull there as the rest. They smiled, and talked of the weather, or
of the play, but their deeper thoughts were carefully locked in their
souls. No, I say it—that any one who long frequents aristocratic
circles, comes to feel a heavy, dull atmosphere there, and is glad
to get into the middle regions to breathe life and intellectual
thought once more. There is a science of dining-out discourse—the
art of talking without saying anything—and those who are adroit at
billiards may get well through the long after-dinner hours. I have
been at many out-of-door fêtes. It was the same. You had coveys of
gay people—great lords, bishops, princes even, great lawyers, and
great soldiers, and their ladies. Much beauty, much collecting of gay
equipages at the gates, and splendid military bands of music—but that
was all. It is true what Lord Byron says—
‘He who ascends to mountain-tops, shall find
The loftiest peaks most wrapped in clouds and snow.’
“I don’t mean to say that the aristocracy, in their families, and
the familiar circles of their kith and kin, are not as agreeable and
as full of heart and pleasantness as other people. I am now only
speaking of them in their general society, as you were speaking of
the general society of the Friends; and, in fact, it may seem a
strange fancy to you, but I have always seen a great similarity in
the manners of the aristocracy and those of Friends. There is the
same quiet, unexcited manner—a repose that expresses no surprise
at anything. The women of the Society, in particular, are vastly,
in their manners and deportment, like ladies of rank, though so
different in costume. Both one and the other class can live in
society on the smallest possible quantum of ideas imaginable. Look at
the fair, smooth, unimpassioned faces of the Quaker ladies! On those
placid countenances you trace no vestiges of the storms of passion
or the cravings of ambition. Perhaps the Quaker ladies possess that
tranquillity of tone and temper which their aristocratic sisters
wear so admirably. Certainly I know no class of people who approach
so closely to the aristocratic caste, as the Friends. But, as to
dulness, give me the Quakers rather than the titled great, for they
do indulge in topics of the highest importance. On the means of
putting down war, slavery, priestcraft, and political injustice; and
on the means of promoting freedom of conscience and thought, peace,
and knowledge, they will at any time grow eloquent.”
“Upon my word, dear father,” said Letty, “I never knew you were so
much of a Quaker before!”
“I am no Quaker, little quiz,” said Leonard Woodburn, “but I like
them as honest and practical people. Do you know that William
Fairfax, of whom I was speaking a little while ago, saved me seventy
pounds lately? I was passing along the street in which his shop
is, when out he came, bare-headed. ‘Leonard Woodburn,’ he said,
‘hast thou any of Dakeyne’s notes?’ I replied, that it was very
probable, as I had lately received a large payment for corn from
Derbyshire. This Dakeyne was a flax-spinner, of Darley Dale, and on
his bank-notes he had an engraving of a flax-dressing machine, and
the motto, ‘Strike, Dakeyne! the devil is in the flax.’ ‘I never
liked that man,’ said Mr. Fairfax. ‘If the devil was in his flax, he
was not the man for me. But if thou hast any of his notes, get rid of
them, for he won’t stand a fortnight. He has many paper-kites out,
and they are beginning to fall.’
“On returning home, I looked over my money, and found seventy of
his one-pound notes. I paid them into Mr. Heritage’s bank, who
immediately, by his agent, paid them in to Dakeyne, so that we might
not be the means of defrauding any other innocent person.”
“Ah! now I see,” said Letty, archly, “why you praise the Friends so.”
“Hussy!” said Mr. Woodburn, “that’s the way you treat your father’s
motives, eh!” And he shook his finger in playful menace at her.
At this moment up rode Harry Thorsby, and soon came rapidly in.
“Well, you won’t go to this party at Fair Manor, of course?”
“We are all going,” said Mr. Woodburn, with a sort of brusque jollity.
“You are?” And Thorsby looked silently from one to another.
“Not Letty, though?” he added.
“Yes, Letty and all,” said Mr. Woodburn.
“Are not you a little cracked?” asked Thorsby, gravely. “After what
passed lately—why, I can scarcely credit my senses.”
“It’s all right,” said Mr. Woodburn. “I will pledge my wisdom that
all will be most innocent, and, I dare say, rather amusing.”
“_Very_ amusing, I should think,” said Thorsby, laughing. “Nay, then,
if you are all going, I am going, and I shall try to make a little
fun, if possible; but if I see any sermon coming, I shall seize on
you, Letty, and run right off with you. But I can’t imagine, for the
life of me, how we are to get through the evening.”
“Oh, but they can teach you how to save money,” said Letty,
mischievously; “and what can be pleasanter? That Mr. Fairfax showed
my father how to save seventy pounds the other day.”
“That would be charming, indeed!” said Thorsby. “That settles the
whole question.”
“We shall see what they will do,” said Mr. Woodburn. So it was
concluded to accept the invitation; and Harry Thorsby was entrusted
with the note to that effect to leave at the lodge in passing.
The evening of the appointed day saw the Woodburns driving up towards
Fair Manor. Other carriages were seen approaching from Castleborough,
indicating that it was to be a considerable gathering. It was a
lovely evening. The day had been cloudless and hot; the earth was dry
and glowing, for there had been no rain for many weeks. The air, as
five o’clock approached (the early country hour fixed for tea), was
still warm and genial. “The weather is really made for these good
people,” said Mr. Woodburn; “we have not the proverbial rains and
chills of pic-nics and _fêtes champêtres_.”
“And I think it’s made for us, too,” said Letty, gaily. “I don’t
think Providence is partial, dear father.”
“Just so,” said Mr. Woodburn; “for as you are inclined to be a little
wicked, you moralising chit, it fulfils the proof that God makes his
sun to shine on the just and the unjust.”
“Oh! do you number me with the unjust?”
“Now and then I do, Letty; but, taking you altogether, you are pretty
well, I think.”
They were now entering the great lodge-gates, which were thrown wide;
and the marks of a considerable number of wheels showed that, early
as they seemed, they were far from the earliest. A sober-suited man,
like one of the villagers, stood guard to keep the little curious
village children outside the grounds, and out of the way of the
carriages. A little on, and you saw that it was a gala day at Fair
Manor, for the fountain in the middle of the front lawn was playing
splendidly. The rich fragrance of the orange-flowers, from the large
row of trees along the house-front, floated deliciously through the
still, warm atmosphere.
As they descended from the carriage at the broad steps of the front
door, what was their surprise to see, standing to receive them, Tom
Boddily, arrayed in a plain, dark, out-of-livery suit, who bowed with
a quiet, arch smile, but with a _savoir faire_, which showed that he
was at home in such an office. Tom informed them that the company
were all in the garden, where the tea would be served, and said the
ladies were recommended not to take off their bonnets. He led the way
through the fine wide and lofty hall running through the house, and
to the foot of the steps at the other door, where, with another very
_au fait_ bow, he pointed to a large canopy on poles, on the lawn,
where a considerable company of guests were standing about.
“Now, there’s an instance of the quick eye for business which even
the lady Quakers have,” said Mr. Woodburn, as he led on his comely
wife. “Mrs. Heritage saw in a moment, at our haymaking, the jewel of
a serving-man in Tom Boddily.”
The next moment Mr. and Mrs. Woodburn, and the young ladies, were
received with the warmest welcome by Mr. and Mrs. Heritage, and Miss
Heritage, the latter of whom kissed Letty and Ann affectionately.
They saw George already there, and Thorsby, looking all radiance with
good spirits. They were introduced to the different persons unknown
to them, consisting of a “mixed medley,” as some people are fond
of calling it, of the Quaker world and the outer world. Amid the
ordinary attire of those, in Friends’ phrase, “not in the Society,”
gleamed the subdued hues, French grey and dove-colour, the dresses of
a number of young Quaker girls, in their neat little transparent and
delicately-drawn book-muslin caps. More matronly lady Friends showed
their dark-brown or russet colour gowns, white muslin handkerchiefs
over their shoulders, and caps of thicker fabric and plainer style.
Thorsby, who had already found himself at Letty’s side, whispered to
her, “Deuced pretty are not some of these young Quakeresses? What
health, what innocence in their looks—and yet, I can detect a certain
arch wide-awakeness under all their apparent simplicity. And what an
air some of them have, even in that quaint dress—why, I can see that
in that gay unworldly costume, they cultivate—Fashion! Upon my word!
yes, it is a fact. See the difference betwixt the dress of the elder
ladies and theirs! As for Miss Heritage, she is really bewitching.
Why, in her simple dark dress and little jaunty cap there is an
indescribable elegance. Look at those clear, sunny, azure eyes, under
those dark eye-lashes, and amid that raven hair. I don’t wonder that
King George, in his younger days, ran away with a young Quakeress.”
“Don’t you think,” said Letty, looking at him with a funny smile,
“that you will be running off with one some day?”
“Never!” said Thorsby, looking earnestly into Letty’s eyes.
But there is a call to tea, and the company are taking their places,
and we don’t yet know who there are. I see, however, Sir Emanuel
Clavering, Mr. Thomas Clavering, the rector of Cotmanhaye, and
Mrs. Clavering; Dr. Frank Leroy; a number of ladies and gentlemen
from Castleborough, whom my readers would not know if I formally
introduced them. There was that William Fairfax, the eminent grocer,
by whom Mr. Woodburn seated himself. There was a tall, large,
humorous-looking individual, a Mr. George Barthe, a Friend and
dentist, celebrated throughout the neighbouring counties amongst the
aristocracy for his skill and his droll sayings, Quaker as he was.
Not far off sat a middle-sized, thin, elderly man, of a venerable
but peculiar look, a Friend, named Mr. Ephraim Wire, reckoned a very
great eccentric. Mr. Heritage, a tall, handsome man, very gentlemanly
in his manners, and with a dark-brown suit of strictly Friends’
clothes, yet somehow very little differing from those of other
gentlemen, was making himself agreeable to all present. Mrs. Heritage
looked at once Quakerly and queenly, and was as cordially kindly
smiling, and courteously hospitable, as if she never had breathed
a word of omen in any sermon, or in any other way. She knew how to
distribute her attentions to every one, and to make every one feel
at ease and happy. She saw all seated under that ample canvas canopy,
at that ample and luxuriously-spread tea-table, where a number of
urns, at equal distances, were made the centres of attraction, by
being officiated at by very sweet young girls in Friend-costume.
Tom Boddily was actively waiting, and conveying cups of odorous tea
or coffee with a dexterous celerity which showed old practice. With
him were Sylvanus Crook, in his Quaker drab, and another Quaker
serving-man, the very counterpart of Sylvanus, only nearly twice
his height and size. He wore a drab suit of the very same cut as
Sylvanus’s, grey stockings, and shoes with large square buckles. His
hat was three-cocked, and the broad brim suspended by silk-cords,
exactly as Sylvanus’s hat. He had a thin, somewhat meagre, but
knowing-looking countenance, and greyish hair. His hat now was laid
aside.
“Look at that Bunyan’s Christian sort of man waiting so solemnly,”
said some one to his neighbour. “That is the coachman of George
Barthe, yonder, the dentist; odd master, odd man.”
Sir Emanuel Clavering and Mr. Heritage seemed to be spreading a great
deal of life and interest around them by the conversation they were
carrying on. Mrs. Heritage, Mrs. Woodburn, and Mr. and Mrs. Thomas
Clavering appeared equally at home in some pleasant conversation.
Dr. Leroy had again contrived to be seated betwixt Miss Millicent
Heritage and a young lady—ay, who is she? Thorsby, betwixt Letty and
a gentleman unknown to me, but opposite to Ann Woodburn and this
young lady, was just asking the same question. Well, she is not a
Friend; and she is a stranger; and a very interesting one. She is
tall, handsome both in figure and face. Appears five-and-twenty,
and has an expression, so clear, clever, well-bred, and yet with a
sentiment in her eyes, both of love, of mirth, and of something
deeper, that is very fascinating. It appears so to George Woodburn,
who sits also not far from opposite to her, and has scarcely taken
his eyes off her since he first caught sight of her.
Well, this fair stranger is Miss Elizabeth Drury. You would like to
know more? Then, I can tell you—that the Heritages lately met with
her at Scarborough—where, by-the-bye, the Degges are yet—that is the
reason you don’t see them here. Miss Elizabeth Drury is of Yorkshire.
Her father is as eminent an agriculturist as Mr. William Fairfax is
a grocer. Mr. Trant Drury is a great authority in all agricultural
matters, an advanced man in Georgic science, in knowledge of stock,
implements, and manures. He is a gentleman by education and capital,
but not by land: and Miss Drury is his only child. I say, and I
am sure George Woodburn thinks her, a very interesting person. He
is delighted to see how, after a few desultory and fragmentary
interchanges of speech with longish pauses between them, his sister
Ann and she warm-up and “cotton” to each other. What? Yes; they
are got upon love of the country, and of the—Church. Oh, that is
enough—the Church and the country, and George Herbert’s poetry, and
Jeremy Taylor—an odd mixture, but very taking to both Ann Woodburn
and Elizabeth Drury. There is a great league struck up at once—a
friendship for life. Ann Woodburn does not perceive that Dr. Leroy,
at her right hand, is spending all his conversation on Millicent
Heritage; and Miss Drury, though her eyes do wander a little over the
strange company, is deeply interested in Ann.
“But pray,” she asks of Ann, “who is that very agreeable young man to
the left across the table, who seems to look one through and through.”
“Ah! that is my dear brother George!” says Ann. “You will like him
so when you know him.”
Miss Drury blushed. Why should she? It must have been because she saw
that George Woodburn had noticed the looks of herself and sister Ann
directed towards him.
Down the table that amiable-looking Ephraim Wire is deeply
indoctrinating a listening number with Phonetics, Vegetarianism, and
the true source of health—all topics totally unknown then except to
himself. Further down we hear the voice of William Fairfax, grown
earnest and rather loud. He is evidently commenting on the burdens of
the poor, and the diseases of the body politic: and is uttering his
favourite declaration:
“We have three standing armies.”
“Three!” says some one.
“We maintain three standing armies,” he continues. “We have a
standing army of soldiers to fight the French; and another standing
army of doctors to fight Death; and another standing army of parsons
to fight the Devil, of whom he standeth not in awe!”
“Hear! hear!” Much laughter resounded from that quarter.
“I hear our friend Fairfax,” said Mr. Thomas Clavering, “on his
favourite topic. He is brushing our cloth for us; but the good,
dear old reviler, he would give us a whole wardrobe if we wanted
one. For my part, I like to hear his good-humoured diatribes, and
often look in on him, and am sure to find some of the classes he
denounces, bankers, officers, doctors, or clergymen there. There is
more originality in that man’s mode of viewing things than in all
the minds in the county. But mark me, I will take my revenge on him
before he goes.”
With this the guests rose. The tea-table, at all events, had been
a decided success. The groups who had engaged in conversation at
table, many of them, continued to walk and talk together with much
enthusiasm. Mr. Heritage told the company that he hoped they would
contrive to amuse one another. They would find in different parts
of the grounds, bowls, a target, and means of archery for those who
liked such exercises, and, he hoped, materials for ample pleasure
in one another. The company spread, grouped, wandered by degrees in
full talk, and disappeared amongst the winding walks. The grounds
were extensive, delightfully varied with shrubbery, clumps of noble
trees, lawns opening, here and there, amongst them, flower-beds; and
in one place a considerable expanse of water, on which were swans
and different kinds of wild ducks; and seats were placed around for
leisurely viewing them.
Parties of the young men were soon found, engaged with bows and
arrows; others having a game of bowls; and others, and amongst them
Thorsby and Dr. Leroy, trying their skill in jumping. Tom Boddily had
pointed out a soft piece of ground where they could jump distances
without hurting their legs and feet.
“Now,” said Thorsby, “I hear that you, Boddily, are a first-rate
jumper; let us see what you can do.”
“Well,” said Tom, “it does not become me to jump with you, gentlemen.
I can, it is true, cut out most of the young villagers at leaping;
but it would be presuming to enter into your sports, gentlemen.”
“Nonsense,” said Thorsby, “I want to see what you can do. I don’t
want to show my leaping, and have you laughing in your sleeve at my
inferiority.”
“Well,” said Tom, “if master sees us, you will make my excuses.”
“Of course,” said both Thorsby and Dr. Leroy.
Tom having stripped off his coat, led the way. The young men were
amazed at the manner in which he seemed to throw himself through the
air, as if he had been an elastic ball.
“We shall never do that,” said Thorsby, taking a determined run, and
turning very red in the face, but falling a few inches short of Tom’s
mark. Dr. Leroy, very quietly, and without much apparent exertion,
outwent Tom considerably; but the next time Tom flew a foot beyond
this. Thorsby put forth all his strength, but only to find that
both he and Dr. Leroy were hopelessly distanced by this wiry little
fellow. They next tried the cat-gallows, or high leaping. The result
was the same. “There is no chance with you, Tom,” said Thorsby; “you
must have kangaroo-leather shoes on.”
“No,” said Tom; “I’ll jump in my bare feet if you like.”
“No, thank you, Tom,” added Thorsby and Dr. Leroy together. “And
hark! what’s that? Why, the girls are singing! Singing, I declare,”
said Thorsby, “in the very heart of Quakerdom.”
They hurried off in the direction of the sound, and came to where
the large handsome summer-house stood overlooking the garden-wall.
Around it was gathered the greater part of the company, and a chorus
of voices swelled up from the summer-house, singing most deliciously,
Moore’s “Harp of Tara.”
“Aha! how’s this?” said Thorsby to George Woodburn.
“Oh, it is a conspiracy of the girls. I believe that Yorkshire young
lady put them up to it. She, my sisters, and Miss Heritage, have got
possession of the summer-house and locked themselves in, and are
enjoying the lark amazingly. And don’t they sing charmingly.”
“It’s grand fun,” said Thorsby; “look, even the old Friends, who say
they don’t like music, how they are listening. Look even at that old
Silenus, David Qualm, how he is drinking it in as he sits under the
tree there. And Mrs. Heritage,—oh, she is smiling quite forgetfully
at this carnal outburst.”
“Whist! whist!” said Mr. Heritage, equally forgetting his professed
aversion to music.
Thorsby jogged Dr. Leroy’s arm, and whispered, “Hear that now!—is not
that rich?”
The happy holders of the house sang on—a number of Moore’s Melodies
and Burns’s Songs, even “Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled,” which was
then very popular, and received loud encores and bravos from the
company below, especially from the Claverings and the guests “not
in the Society” from Castleborough. Thorsby and Dr. Leroy were as
energetically applausive as the rest of them: and when Miss Drury put
her handsome, laughing face out of one of the windows, and said,
“May we capitulate honourably?—that is, to march out with all our
arms”—here the other fair culprits showed a number of very persuasive
arms through the other windows—“with all our arms,” continued Miss
Drury, “and with colours flying?” the applause was uproarious;
the merry girls descended in high glee from their orchestra, and
were received with enthusiastic clappings of hands, and much
congratulatory greeting from all assembled, which was every soul on
the premises.
Scarcely had this lively clatter of tongues subsided, when another
surprise seized on the guests. From out a walk issuing from amongst
the trees, appeared Mr. Barthe, the eccentric dentist,—but oh, what a
nose! The young ladies fairly shrieked with affright; the gentlemen
stood for a moment dumbfounded; on came Mr. Barthe with a nose of
huge size, and with a termination like a knob of oak. With a most
grave and polite manner, the Friend bowed right and left with a
grace befitting a courtier, and with hat in hand, and then passed
round behind the trees. The next moment a loud and general laugh
broke from the gentlemen, and was joined in by the ladies; but before
it was well over, again Mr. Barthe appeared whence he had first
issued, with another nose still more astounding. This time it was a
huge very green frog; and with the same pantomime he passed along and
away round the trees. The wonder and merriment were in full play,
when a third time Mr. Barthe appeared, now with a yellow-red flaming
beard and head of hair, and a nose—oh! Bardolph’s was nothing to it
for fire and carbuncle. This time, the surprise having exhausted
itself, the applause was loud and unrestrained, and the next moment
the Quaker humourist again appearing in his proper aspect, and with
the fiery beard and scalp and the three noses dangling by strings in
his hand, was received with great gaiety by his wondering friends.
“My dear friends,” he said, “don’t imagine that these are disguises
that I amuse myself with, or of my own invention. They were the odd
fancy of an uncle of mine, a great woolstapler, well known to many
here. As he rode far and wide through the country, buying up wool
from the farmers in summer, he used to put on one of these noses,
or this blazing beard and hair, as he approached some village; the
wonder and even terror that he excited were very amusing to him.
Boys ran crying—‘Oh, look at that man’s nose! What a nose!’ People
looked in astonishment; but greater was their astonishment when on
returning through the same village soon after, the boys, seeing him
at a distance, would cry out—‘The man with the nose!’ and, behold, on
his coming up his nose was just like any other person’s. I am afraid
sometimes he must have occasioned some boys a beating, or at least
a good snubbing, when they cried—‘Here comes the man with the nose!’
and the lookers out saw only a very shapely and befitting nose.
Sometimes the women said—‘Poor gentleman, what a misfortune! Hush,
children, you may be struck with such a nose if you mock!’ One woman
greatly amused him: her little daughter was dancing in delight at
the approach of the man with the nose, on the ash-heap by the door,
but the poor woman seeing only a very respectable gentleman, with
no nasal enormity whatever, gave the girl a slap, saying—‘Come in,
little minx, I’ll teach thee to be making thy i—o—oms there on the
ash-midden. I’ll give thee a lection!’”
Such was the story of this strange man, who in truth very much
resembled the portraits of sentimental and unsentimental Laurence
Sterne; but William Fairfax said aloud,—“George, thou talks of
thy uncle, but wilt thou take thy affirmation that thou dost
not amuse thyself in thy journeys through the country with these
phantasmagoria? What says thy man, William Theobald?”
“Ask master himself,” said William; “he is of age.”
“Well then, George Barthe—what say’st thou?”
“I say nothing,” replied Barthe, amid a general laughter.
Thorsby was delighted with the fiery hair and beard, and would put
them on, to the great sport of the young people. And then he would
insist on some of the young ladies either putting them on, or trying
one of the noses. At this instant, however, a singular note, high in
a thickly-ivied tree just behind, caught their ears.
“What is that?” asked a dozen voices.
“It is a note of a nightingale,” said some one.
“No, that cannot be,” said Mr. Thomas Clavering, “the nightingales
have long ceased for this year.”
The sound recommenced and went on. “It is a thrush,” said Mr.
Clavering. “No,—what is it? It is a thrush, and it is not.”
A loud, clear, warbling again issued from the ivy aloft in the tree.
It was to ordinary ears a thrush, and a very fine one. But Mr.
Clavering, most intimate with English birds’ notes, said,—“No, it was
no thrush; he believed it to be a man, but an extraordinarily clever
one, and where was he?”
All eyes were strained upwards towards the part of the tree where its
great branches diverged, and whence the warbling came. Nothing could
be discerned. Suddenly the air changed. It was a blackbird, with its
fine flowing notes. Again, and it was a nightingale.
“Ah! that is the nightingale,” said George Woodburn.
“No,” insisted Mr. Clavering, “but it is an amazing imitation. Every
note correct. Hark to that—‘jug, jug, jug, more sweet than all;’
which the printer of Coleridge’s Poems so provokingly printed ‘more
sweet than ale.’ It is most wonderful!”
But the wonder did not cease, but increased. From the nightingale’s
most impassioned song, the music, or whistling, advanced into notes,
strange, weird, unearthly, into a very triumph and intoxication of
wondrous sounds.
“That is surely like the music of birds in heaven!” exclaimed Miss
Heritage.
“What can it be?” continued Mr. Clavering, going round the tree, and
peering up on all sides. “If I were a lad again, I would be up in a
twink, and find it out.”
One or two youths were throwing off their coats, to mount the tree,
when the droll face of Tom Boddily peeped out from among the ivy,
between the great diverging arms of the tree, and said,—“You need not
climb, gentlemen, it is only me, Tom Boddily!” In another moment he
was seen descending with the agility of a monkey amongst the ivy,
and down he dropped lightly in the midst of the company. All crowded
eagerly round him, to learn by what means he made such sounds. Tom
pulled out a simple lark-whistle, such as village boys use or used,
but without any such magical power. Besides this little tin box,
perforated with a single hole, he produced also a small tin pipe, not
more than four inches long, and by the aid of these, he showed them
how he executed such artistic music.
“How in the world did you learn that, Tom?” asked Mr. Clavering.
“I learnt it when I was sogering, sir.”
“You must have found a very extraordinary master,” said Sir Emanuel.
“I did, Sir Emanuel; and yet he was but a poor boy.”
“A poor boy!”
“Yes, only a poor boy, God bless him,” said Tom, and the tears
stood in his eyes. “I was acquainted with one of our corporals,
and often used to go to his lodgings—there was no barracks then—at
Ipswich. I often saw a poor, very pale, but pretty lad sitting in
the court-yard in a light hand-carriage. He sat there because his
mother was a laundry woman, and could only take him out when she went
with light lots of clean linen to different houses. To amuse himself
he used to play on a lark-whistle and a little tin pipe. They were
these very ones,” said Tom, and wiped his sleeve across his eyes. “I
was quite astonished at the music he could draw out of such simple
things, and delighted to listen to him, and he was delighted to have
me to listen. Poor Freddy! if he had had his health, he would have
been a great musician. Oh! he had such an ear! nothing caught it,
but he could imitate it. He picked up tunes, as chickens pick up
barley-corns, without thinking. And then he was so fond of reading.
He had always some books lying by him in his waggon—and he took such
a longing, oh! such a longing, to be out in the fields, to feel the
fresh wind on his poor thin cheek, and to see the brooks running in
the sunshine amongst the flags and flowers, and to hear the birds. It
made my heart to ache. I knew he had not long to live; he was lamed
by an accident, and the hurt had taken bad ways. The doctors said his
days were numbered.
“What a shame! I thought, that the poor lad should so long for the
fields, and the winds, and the look of the sky, and the songs and
ways of birds, and had but a little time to enjoy ’em, and nobody to
take him out. So I determined to take him, and I used to go and draw
him into the meadows, and through the woods, whenever I could. And
when my captain was away for some months, I devoted all my time to
take poor Freddy out. Oh! it would have done you good to see what a
joy it was to him. How he would lie and listen by the side of a wood,
and then imitate all sorts of birds, and he would never be satisfied
till he had taught me to do the same. But I was but a poor scholar.
It is since he is gone that the power has come to me—by thinking of
him, I reckon. I don’t know how else.
“Poor Freddy! he used sometimes to cut me to the quick, by taking my
hand and saying, ‘Do you think, Tom, heaven is more beautiful than
this? I don’t think it can. And do you think we shall feel such cool,
sweet winds, and hear the birds, I wonder?’
“‘No doubt,’ said I, ‘no doubt; they have everything better and finer
than we have: but, my dear Fred, you are not gone yet. I hope we
shall have many a pleasant time together yet.’
“‘I hope we shall,’ he would say, and then lie and think, and then
perhaps drop asleep: and if ever I see an angel, I know it will look
like that child in his sleep. He did not live out the summer. That’s
how I learnt to play such bird-tunes.” And Tom went quickly away
towards the house. There was many a fair face wet with tears—and some
manly ones, too.
“That is an extraordinary fellow,” said Sir Emanuel. “He is a real
genius; and he has a heart in his bosom, too.”
There was a call to supper. But why need we follow into that large
and well-lighted room, where an exquisite repast was laid out. After
that, Sir Emanuel, who had had a fine telescope erected by his own
man on the lawn, showed the young people some of the marvels of the
heavens; and Mr. Clavering showed others the equal marvels revealed
by a microscope of great powers; and Dr. Leroy exhibited, by means of
a magic lantern, views of many celebrated cities and Alpine scenes,
which he had visited in his travels. The Quaker party was a decided
success. All appeared charmed with their entertainment. Even Mr.
Clavering had an opportunity of taking his good-natured revenge on
Mr. William Fairfax, for as he was making a sort of harangue, resting
his hands on a chair-back, and saying, of some things and people that
he was commenting upon, “By their fruits shall ye know them,” Mr.
Clavering said quietly—“But if it should be winter time, and there
be neither fruit nor leaves on the trees, how should we know them?”
Mr. Fairfax suddenly saying, “Farewell!” turned round and went off,
much to the amusement of a group of young people, and followed by Mr.
Clavering’s pleasant, good-natured glance of triumph.
At the early hour of ten o’clock all were hurrying away from Fair
Manor, in the happiest of moods, and Mrs. Heritage had not uttered a
single syllable of a sermon.