THE STATE OF WALTER’S MIND.--AN ANGLER AND A MAN OF THE
WORLD.--A COMPANION FOUND FOR WALTER.
“This great disease for love I dre,
There is no tongue can tell the wo;
I love the love that loves not me,
I may not mend, but mourning mo.”
--The Mourning Maiden.
“I in these flowery meads would be,
These crystal streams should solace me,
To whose harmonious bubbling voice
I with my angle would rejoice.”
--Izaac Walton.
When Walter left his uncle, he hurried, scarcely conscious of his steps,
towards his favourite haunt by the water-side. From a child, he had
singled out that scene as the witness of his early sorrows or boyish
schemes; and still, the solitude of the place cherished the habit of his
boyhood.
Long had he, unknown to himself, nourished an attachment to his
beautiful cousin; nor did he awaken to the secret of his heart, until,
with an agonizing jealousy, he penetrated the secret at her own. The
reader has, doubtless, already perceived that it was this jealousy which
at the first occasioned Walter’s dislike to Aram: the consolation of
that dislike was forbid him now. The gentleness and forbearance of the
Student’s deportment had taken away all ground of offence; and Walter
had sufficient generosity to acknowledge his merits, while tortured
by their effect. Silently, till this day, he had gnawed his heart, and
found for its despair no confidant and no comfort. The only wish that
he cherished was a feverish and gloomy desire to leave the scene which
witnessed the triumph of his rival. Every thing around had become
hateful to his eyes, and a curse had lighted upon the face of Home. He
thought now, with a bitter satisfaction, that his escape was at hand: in
a few days he might be rid of the gall and the pang, which every moment
of his stay at Grassdale inflicted upon him. The sweet voice of Madeline
he should hear no more, subduing its silver sound for his rival’s
ear:--no more he should watch apart, and himself unheeded, how timidly
her glance roved in search of another, or how vividly her cheek flushed
when the step of that happier one approached. Many miles would at least
shut out this picture from his view; and in absence, was it not possible
that he might teach himself to forget? Thus meditating, he arrived at
the banks of the little brooklet, and was awakened from his reverie by
the sound of his own name. He started, and saw the old Corporal seated
on the stump of a tree, and busily employed in fixing to his line the
mimic likeness of what anglers, and, for aught we know, the rest of the
world, call the “violet fly.”
“Ha! master,--at my day’s work, you see:--fit for nothing else now. When
a musquet’s halfworn out, schoolboys buy it--pop it at sparrows. I be
like the musket: but never mind--have not seen the world for nothing. We
get reconciled to all things: that’s my way--augh! Now, Sir, you shall
watch me catch the finest trout you have seen this summer: know where he
lies--under the bush yonder. Whi--sh! Sir, whi--sh!”
The Corporal now gave his warrior soul up to the due guidance of the
violet-fly: now he shipped it lightly on the wave; now he slid it
coquettishly along the surface; now it floated, like an unconscious
beauty, carelessly with the tide; and now, like an artful prude, it
affected to loiter by the way, or to steal into designing obscurity
under the shade of some overhanging bank. But none of these manoeuvres
captivated the wary old trout on whose acquisition the Corporal had
set his heart; and what was especially provoking, the angler could see
distinctly the dark outline of the intended victim, as it lay at the
bottom,--like some well-regulated bachelor who eyes from afar the charms
he has discreetly resolved to neglect.
The Corporal waited till he could no longer blind himself to the
displeasing fact, that the violet-fly was wholly inefficacious; he then
drew up his line, and replaced the contemned beauty of the violet-fly,
with the novel attractions of the yellow-dun.
“Now, Sir!” whispered he, lifting up his finger, and nodding sagaciously
to Walter. Softly dropped the yellow-dun upon the water, and swiftly did
it glide before the gaze of the latent trout; and now the trout seemed
aroused from his apathy, behold he moved forward, balancing himself on
his fins; now he slowly ascended towards the surface; you might see all
the speckles of his coat;--the Corporal’s heart stood still--he is
now at a convenient distance from the yellow-dun; lo, he surveys it
steadfastly; he ponders, he see-saws himself to and fro. The yellow-dun
sails away in affected indifference, that indifference whets the
appetite of the hesitating gazer, he darts forward; he is opposite
the yellow-dun,--he pushes his nose against it with an eager
rudeness,--he--no, he does not bite, he recoils, he gazes again with
surprise and suspicion on the little charmer; he fades back slowly
into the deeper water, and then suddenly turning his tail towards the
disappointed bait, he makes off as fast as he can,--yonder,--yonder, and
disappears! No, that’s he leaping yonder from the wave; Jupiter! what
a noble fellow! What leaps he at?--a real fly--“Damn his eyes!” growled
the Corporal.
“You might have caught him with a minnow,” said Walter, speaking for the
first time.
“Minnow!” repeated the Corporal gruffly, “ask your honour’s pardon.
Minnow!--I have fished with the yellow-dun these twenty years, and never
knew it fail before. Minnow!--baugh! But ask pardon; your honour is very
welcome to fish with a minnow if you please it.”
“Thank you, Bunting. And pray what sport have you had to-day?”
“Oh,--good, good,” quoth the Corporal, snatching up his basket and
closing the cover, lest the young Squire should pry into it. No man is
more tenacious of his secrets than your true angler. “Sent the best home
two hours ago; one weighed three pounds, on the faith of a man; indeed,
I’m satisfied now; time to give up;” and the Corporal began to disjoint
his rod.
“Ah, Sir!” said he, with a half sigh, “a pretty river this, don’t mean
to say it is not; but the river Lea for my money. You know the Lea?--not
a morning’s walk from Lunnun. Mary Gibson, my first sweetheart, lived
by the bridge,--caught such a trout there by the by!--had beautiful
eyes--black, round as a cherry--five feet eight without shoes--might
have listed in the forty-second.”
“Who, Bunting!” said Walter smiling, “the lady or the trout?”
“Augh!--baugh!--what? Oh, laughing at me, your honour, you’re welcome,
Sir. Love’s a silly thing--know the world now--have not fallen in love
these ten years. I doubt--no offence, Sir, no offence--I doubt whether
your honour and Miss Ellinor can say as much.”
“I and Miss Ellinor!--you forge yourself strangely, Bunting,” said
Walter, colouring with anger.
“Beg pardon, Sir, beg pardon--rough soldier--lived away from the world
so long, words slipped out of my mouth--absent without leave.”
“But why,” said Walter, smothering or conquering his vexation,--“why
couple me with Miss Ellinor? Did you imagine that we,--we were in love
with each other?”
“Indeed, Sir, and if I did, ‘tis no more than my neighbours imagine
too.”
“Humph! your neighbours are very silly, then, and very wrong.”
“Beg pardon, Sir, again--always getting askew. Indeed some did say
it was Miss Madeline, but I says,--says I,--‘No! I’m a man of the
world--see through a millstone; Miss Madeline’s too easy like; Miss
Nelly blushes when he speaks; scarlet is love’s regimentals--it was ours
in the forty-second, edged with yellow--pepper and salt pantaloons! For
my part I think,--but I’ve no business to think, howsomever--baugh!”
“Pray what do you think, Mr. Bunting? Why do you hesitate?”
“‘Fraid of offence--but I do think that Master Aram--your honour
understands--howsomever Squire’s daughter too great a match for such as
he!”
Walter did not answer; and the garrulous old soldier, who had been
the young man’s playmate and companion since Walter was a boy; and
was therefore accustomed to the familiarity with which he now spoke,
continued, mingling with his abrupt prolixity an occasional shrewdness
of observation, which shewed that he was no inattentive commentator on
the little and quiet world around him.
“Free to confess, Squire Walter, that I don’t quite like this larned
man, as much as the rest of ‘em--something queer about him--can’t see
to the bottom of him--don’t think he’s quite so meek and lamb-like as
he seems:--once saw a calm dead pool in foren parts--peered down into
it--by little and little, my eye got used to it--saw something dark
at the bottom--stared and stared--by Jupiter--a great big
alligator!--walked off immediately--never liked quiet pools since--augh,
no!”
“An argument against quiet pools, perhaps, Bunting; but scarcely against
quiet people.”
“Don’t know as to that, your honour--much of a muchness. I have seen
Master Aram, demure as he looks, start, and bite his lip, and change
colour, and frown--he has an ugly frown, I can tell ye--when he thought
no one nigh. A man who gets in a passion with himself may be soon out
of temper with others. Free to confess, I should not like to see him
married to that stately beautiful young lady--but they do gossip about
it in the village. If it is not true, better put the Squire on his
guard--false rumours often beget truths--beg pardon, your honour--no
business of mine--baugh! But I’m a lone man, who have seen the world,
and I thinks on the things around me, and I turns over the quid--now on
this side, now on the other--‘tis my way, Sir--and--but I offend your
honour.”
“Not at all; I know you are an honest man, Bunting, and well affected
to our family; at the same time it is neither prudent nor charitable to
speak harshly of our neighbours without sufficient cause. And really you
seem to me to be a little hasty in your judgment of a man so inoffensive
in his habits and so justly and generally esteemed as Mr. Aram.”
“May be, Sir--may be,--very right what you say. But I thinks what I
thinks all the same; and indeed, it is a thing that puzzles me, how that
strange-looking vagabond, as frighted the ladies so, and who, Miss Nelly
told me, for she saw them in his pocket, carried pistols about him,
as if he had been among cannibals and hottentots, instead of the
peaceablest county that man ever set foot in, should boast of his
friendship with this larned schollard, and pass a whole night in his
house. Birds of a feather flock together--augh!--Sir!”
“A man cannot surely be answerable for the respectability of all
his acquaintances, even though he feel obliged to offer them the
accommodation of a night’s shelter.”
“Baugh!” grunted the Corporal. “Seen the world, Sir--seen the
world--young gentlemen are always so good-natured; ‘tis a pity, that the
more one sees the more suspicious one grows. One does not have gumption
till one has been properly cheated--one must be made a fool very often
in order not to be fooled at last!”
“Well, Corporal, I shall now have opportunities enough of profiting
by experience. I am going to leave Grassdale in a few days, and learn
suspicion and wisdom in the great world.”
“Augh! baugh!--what?” cried the Corporal, starting from the
contemplative air which he had hitherto assumed. “The great
world?--how?--when?--going away;--who goes with your honour?”
“My honour’s self; I have no companion, unless you like to attend me;”
said Walter, jestingly--but the Corporal affected, with his natural
shrewdness, to take the proposition in earnest.
“I! your honour’s too good; and indeed, though I say it, Sir, you might
do worse; not but what I should be sorry to leave nice snug home here,
and this stream, though the trout have been shy lately,--ah! that was a
mistake of yours, Sir, recommending the minnow; and neighbour Dealtry,
though his ale’s not so good at ‘twas last year; and--and--but, in
short, I always loved your honour--dandled you on my knees;--You
recollect the broadsword exercise?--one, two, three--augh! baugh!--and
if your honour really is going, why rather than you should want a proper
person who knows the world, to brush your coat, polish your shoes, give
you good advice--on the faith of a man, I’ll go with you myself!”
This alacrity on the part of the Corporal was far from displeasing to
Walter. The proposal he had at first made unthinkingly, he now seriously
thought advisable; and at length it was settled that the Corporal should
call the next morning at the manor-house, and receive instructions as to
the time and method of their departure. Not forgetting, as the sagacious
Bunting delicately insinuated, “the wee settlements as to wages, and
board wages, more a matter of form, like, than any thing else--augh!”