Be she fairer than the day,
Or the flowery meads in May;
If she be not so to me,
What care I how fair she be?
--George Withers.
It was a great pity, so it was,
That villanous saltpetre should be digged
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a good tall fellow had destroyed.
--First Part of King Henry IV.
Several days passed. I had taken particular pains to ingratiate myself
with Lady Roseville, and so far as common acquaintance went, I had no
reason to be dissatisfied with my success. Any thing else, I soon
discovered, notwithstanding my vanity, (which made no inconsiderable part
in the composition of Henry Pelham) was quite out of the question. Her
mind was wholly of a different mould from my own. She was like a being,
not perhaps of a better, but of another world than myself; we had not one
thought or opinion in common; we looked upon things with a totally
different vision; I was soon convinced that she was of a nature exactly
contrary to what was generally believed--she was any thing but the mere
mechanical woman of the world. She possessed great sensibility, and even
romance of temper, strong passions, and still stronger imagination; but
over all these deeper recesses of her character, the extreme softness and
languor of her manners, threw a veil which no superficial observer could
penetrate. There were times when I could believe that she was inwardly
restless and unhappy; but she was too well versed in the arts of
concealment, to suffer such an appearance to be more than momentary.
I must own that I consoled myself very easily for my want, in this
particular instance, of that usual good fortune which attends me aupres
des dames; the fact was, that I had another object in pursuit. All the
men at Sir Lionel Garrett's were keen sportsmen. Now, shooting is an
amusement I was never particularly partial to. I was first disgusted with
that species of rational recreation at a battue, where, instead of
bagging anything, I was nearly bagged, having been inserted, like wine in
an ice pail, in a wet ditch for three hours, during which time my hat had
been twice shot at for a pheasant, and my leather gaiters once for a
hare; and to crown all, when these several mistakes were discovered, my
intended exterminators, instead of apologizing for having shot at me,
were quite disappointed at having missed.
Seriously, that same shooting is a most barbarous amusement, only fit for
majors in the army, and royal dukes, and that sort of people; the mere
walking is bad enough, but embarrassing one's arms moreover, with a gun,
and one's legs with turnip tops, exposing oneself to the mercy of bad
shots and the atrocity of good, seems to me only a state of painful
fatigue, enlivened by the probability of being killed.
This digression is meant to signify, that I never joined the single men
and double Mantons that went in and off among Sir Lionel Garrett's
preserves. I used, instead, to take long walks by myself, and found, like
virtue, my own reward, in the additional health and strength these
diurnal exertions produced me.
One morning, chance threw into my way une bonne fortune, which I took
care to improve. From that time the family of a farmer Sinclair, (one of
Sir Lionel's tenants) was alarmed by strange and supernatural noises: one
apartment in especial, occupied by a female member of the household, was
allowed, even by the clerk of the parish, a very bold man, and a bit of a
sceptic, to be haunted; the windows of that chamber were wont to open and
shut, thin airy voices confabulate therein, and dark shapes hover
thereout, long after the fair occupant had, with the rest of the family,
retired to repose. But the most unaccountable thing was the fatality
which attended me, and seemed to mark me out, nolens volens, for an
untimely death. I, who had so carefully kept out of the way of gunpowder
as a sportsman, very narrowly escaped being twice shot as a ghost. This
was but a poor reward for a walk more than a mile long, in nights by no
means of cloudless climes and starry skies; accordingly I resolved to
"give up the ghost" in earnest rather than in metaphor, and to pay my
last visit and adieus to the mansion of Farmer Sinclair. The night on
which I executed this resolve was rather memorable in my future history.
The rain had fallen so heavily during the day, as to render the road to
the house almost impassable, and when it was time to leave, I inquired
with very considerable emotion, whether there was not an easier way to
return. The answer was satisfactory, and my last nocturnal visit at
Farmer Sinclair's concluded.