FOREIGN GROUND.
[Illustration]
Worth Major Pendennis fulfilled his promise to Warrington so far as to
satisfy his own conscience, and in so far to ease poor Helen with
regard to her son, as to make her understand that all connection
between Arthur and the odious little gate-keeper was at an end, and
that she need have no further anxiety with respect to an imprudent
attachment or a degrading marriage on Pen's part. And that young
fellow's mind was also relieved (after he had recovered the shock to
his vanity) by thinking that Miss Fanny was not going to die of love
for him, and that no unpleasant consequences were to be apprehended
from the luckless and brief connection.
So the whole party were free to carry into effect their projected
Continental trip, and Arthur Pendennis, rentier, voyageant avec Madame
Pendennis and Mademoiselle Bell, and George Warrington, particulier,
age de 32 ans, taille 6 pieds (Anglais), figure ordinaire, cheveux
noirs, barbe idem, &c., procured passports from the consul of H.M. the
King of the Belgians at Dover, and passed over from that port to
Ostend, whence the party took their way leisurely, visiting Bruges and
Ghent on their way to Brussels and the Rhine. It is not our purpose to
describe this oft-traveled tour, or Laura's delight at the tranquil
and ancient cities which she saw for the first time, or Helen's wonder
and interest at the Beguine convents which they visited, or the almost
terror with which she saw the black-veiled nuns with out-stretched
arms kneeling before the illuminated altars, and beheld the strange
pomps and ceremonials of the Catholic worship. Bare-footed friars in
the streets, crowned images of Saints and Virgins in the churches
before which people were bowing down and worshiping, in direct
defiance, as she held, of the written law; priests in gorgeous robes,
or lurking in dark confessionals, theatres opened, and people dancing
on Sundays; all these new sights and manners shocked and bewildered
the simple country lady; and when the young men after their evening
drive or walk returned to the widow and her adopted daughter, they
found their books of devotion on the table, and at their entrance
Laura would commonly cease reading some of the psalms or the sacred
pages which, of all others Helen loved. The late events connected with
her son had cruelly shaken her; Laura watched with intense, though
hidden anxiety, every movement of her dearest friend; and poor Pen was
most constant and affectionate in waiting upon his mother, whose
wounded bosom yearned with love toward him, though there was a secret
between them, and an anguish or rage almost on the mother's part, to
think that she was dispossessed somehow of her son's heart, or that
there were recesses in it which she must not or dared not enter. She
sickened as she thought of the sacred days of boyhood when it had not
been so--when her Arthur's heart had no secrets, and she was his all
in all: when he poured his hopes and pleasures, his childish griefs,
vanities, triumphs into her willing and tender embrace; when her home
was his nest still; and before fate, selfishness, nature, had driven
him forth on wayward wings--to range on his own flight--to sing his
own song--and to seek his own home and his own mate. Watching this
devouring care and racking disappointment in her friend, Laura once
said to Helen, "If Pen had loved me as you wished, I should have
gained him, but I should have lost you, mamma, I know I should; and I
like you to love me best. Men do not know what it is to love as we do,
I think,"--and Helen, sighing, agreed to this portion of the young
lady's speech, though she protested against the former part. For my
part, I suppose Miss Laura was right in both statements, and with
regard to the latter assertion especially, that it is an old and
received truism--love is an hour with us: it is all night and all day
with a woman. Damon has taxes, sermon, parade, tailors' bills,
parliamentary duties, and the deuce knows what to think of; Delia has
to think about Damon--Damon is the oak (or the post), and stands up,
and Delia is the ivy or the honey-suckle whose arms twine about him.
Is it not so, Delia? Is it not your nature to creep about his feet and
kiss them, to twine round his trunk and hang there; and Damon's to
stand like a British man with his hands in his breeches pocket, while
the pretty fond parasite clings round him?
Old Pendennis had only accompanied our friends to the water's edge,
and left them on board the boat, giving the chief charge of the little
expedition to Warrington. He himself was bound on a brief visit to the
house of a great man, a friend of his, after which sojourn he proposed
to join his sister-in-law at the German watering-place, whither the
party was bound. The major himself thought that his long attentions to
his sick family had earned for him a little relaxation--and though the
best of the partridges were thinned off, the pheasants were still to
be shot at Stillbrook, where the noble owner still was; old Pendennis
betook himself to that hospitable mansion and disported there with
great comfort to himself. A royal duke, some foreigners of note, some
illustrious statesmen, and some pleasant people visited it: it did the
old fellow's heart good to see his name in the "Morning Post," among
the list of the distinguished company which the Marquis of Steyne was
entertaining at his country house at Stillbrook. He was a very useful
and pleasant personage in a country house. He entertained the young
men with queer little anecdotes and _grivoises_ stories on their
shooting parties, or in their smoking-room, where they laughed at him
and with him. He was obsequious with the ladies of a morning, in the
rooms dedicated to them. He walked the new arrivals about the park and
gardens, and showed them the _carte du pays_, and where there was the
best view of the mansion, and where the most favorable point to look
at the lake: he showed where the timber was to be felled, and where
the old road went before the new bridge was built, and the hill cut
down; and where the place in the wood was where old Lord Lynx
discovered Sir Phelim O'Neal on his knees before her ladyship, &c.
&c.; he called the lodge keepers and gardeners by their names; he knew
the number of domestics that sat down in the housekeeper's room, and
how many dined in the servants' hall; he had a word for every body,
and about every body, and a little against every body. He was
invaluable in a country house, in a word: and richly merited and
enjoyed his vacation after his labors. And perhaps while he was thus
deservedly enjoying himself with his country friends, the major was
not ill-pleased at transferring to Warrington the command of the
family expedition to the Continent, and thus perforce keeping him in
the service of the ladies--a servitude which George was only too
willing to undergo for his friend's sake, and for that of a society
which he found daily more delightful. Warrington was a good German
scholar and was willing to give Miss Laura lessons in the language,
who was very glad to improve herself, though Pen, for his part, was
too weak or lazy now to resume his German studies. Warrington acted as
courier and interpreter; Warrington saw the baggage in and out of
ships, inns, and carriages, managed the money matters, and put the
little troop into marching order. Warrington found out where the
English church was, and, if Mrs. Pendennis and Miss Laura were
inclined to go thither, walked with great decorum along with them.
Warrington walked by Mrs. Pendennis's donkey, when that lady went out
on her evening excursions; or took carriages for her; or got
"Galignani" for her; or devised comfortable seats under the lime trees
for her, when the guests paraded after dinner, and the Kursaal band at
the bath, where our tired friends stopped, performed their pleasant
music under the trees. Many a fine whiskered Prussian or French dandy,
come to the bath for the "_Trente et quarante_" cast glances of
longing toward the pretty, fresh-colored English girl who accompanied
the pale widow, and would have longed to take a turn with her at the
galop or the waltz. But Laura did not appear in the ball-room,
except once or twice, when Pen vouchsafed to walk with her; and as for
Warrington that rough diamond had not had the polish of a dancing
master, and he did not know how to waltz--though he would have liked
to learn, if he could have had such a partner as Laura. Such a
partner! psha, what had a stiff bachelor to do with partners and
waltzing? what was he about, dancing attendance here? drinking in
sweet pleasure at a risk he knows not of what after sadness and
regret, and lonely longing? But yet he staid on. You would have said
he was the widow's son, to watch his constant care and watchfulness of
her; or that he was an adventurer, and wanted to marry her fortune, or
at any rate, that he wanted some very great treasure or benefit from her
--and very likely he did--for ours, as the reader has possibly already
discovered, is a Selfish Story, and almost every person, according to his
nature, more or less generous than George, and according to the way of
the world as it seems to us, is occupied about Number One. So Warrington
selfishly devoted himself to Helen, who selfishly devoted herself to Pen,
who selfishly devoted himself to himself at this present period, having
no other personage or object to occupy him, except, indeed, his mother's
health, which gave him a serious and real disquiet; but though they
sate together, they did not talk much, and the cloud was always
between them.
[Illustration]
Every day Laura looked for Warrington, and received him with more
frank and eager welcome. He found himself talking to her as he didn't
know himself that he could talk. He found himself performing acts of
gallantry which astounded him after the performance: he found himself
looking blankly in the glass at the crow's-feet round his eyes, and at
some streaks of white in his hair, and some intrusive silver bristles
in his grim, blue beard. He found himself looking at the young bucks
at the bath--at the blond, tight-waisted Germans--at the capering
Frenchmen, with their lackered mustaches and trim varnished boots--at
the English dandies, Pen among them, with their calm domineering air,
and insolent languor: and envied each one of these some excellence or
quality of youth, or good looks which he possessed, and of which
Warrington felt the need. And every night, as the night came, he
quitted the little circle with greater reluctance; and, retiring to
his own lodging in their neighborhood, felt himself the more lonely
and unhappy. The widow could not help seeing his attachment. She
understood, now, why Major Pendennis (always a tacit enemy of her
darling project) had been so eager that Warrington should be of their
party. Laura frankly owned her great, her enthusiastic, regard for
him: and Arthur would make no movement. Arthur did not choose to see
what was going on; or did not care to prevent, or actually encouraged,
it. She remembered his often having said that he could not understand
how a man proposed to a woman twice. She was in torture--at secret
feud with her son, of all objects in the world the dearest to her--in
doubt, which she dared not express to herself, about Laura--averse to
Warrington, the good and generous. No wonder that the healing waters
of Rosenbad did not do her good, or that Doctor von Glauber, the bath
physician, when he came to visit her, found that the poor lady made no
progress to recovery. Meanwhile Pen got well rapidly; slept with
immense perseverance twelve hours out of the twenty-four; ate huge
meals; and, at the end of a couple of months, had almost got back the
bodily strength and weight which he had possessed before his illness.
After they had passed some fifteen days at their place of rest and
refreshment, a letter came from Major Pendennis announcing his speedy
arrival at Rosenbad, and, soon after the letter, the major himself
made his appearance accompanied by Morgan his faithful valet, without
whom the old gentleman could not move. When the major traveled he wore
a jaunty and juvenile traveling costume; to see his back still you
would have taken him for one of the young fellows whose slim waist and
youthful appearance Warrington was beginning to envy. It was not until
the worthy man began to move, that the observer remarked that Time had
weakened his ancient knees, and had unkindly interfered to impede the
action of the natty little varnished boots in which the old traveler
still pinched his toes. There were magnates both of our own country
and of foreign nations present that autumn at Rosenbad. The elder
Pendennis read over the strangers' list with great gratification on
the night of his arrival, was pleased to find several of his
acquaintances among the great folks, and would have the honor of
presenting his nephew to a German Grand Duchess, a Russian Princess,
and an English Marquis, before many days were over: nor was Pen by any
means averse to making the acquaintance of these great personages,
having a liking for polite life, and all the splendors and amenities
belonging to it. That very evening the resolute old gentlemen, leaning
on his nephew's arm, made his appearance in the halls of the Kursaal,
and lost or won a napoleon or two at the table of _Trente et
quarante_. He did not play to lose, he said, or to win, but he did as
other folks did, and betted his napoleon and took his luck as it came.
He pointed out the Russians and Spaniards gambling for heaps of gold,
and denounced their eagerness as something sordid and barbarous; an
English gentleman should play where the fashion is play, but should
not elate or depress himself at the sport; and he told how he had seen
his friend the Marquis of Steyne, when Lord Gaunt, lose eighteen
thousand at a sitting, and break the bank three nights running at
Paris, without ever showing the least emotion at his defeat or
victory--"And that's what I call being an English gentleman, Pen, my
dear boy," the old gentleman said, warming as he prattled about his
recollections--"what I call the great manner only remains with us and
with a few families in France." And as Russian princesses passed him,
whose reputation had long ceased to be doubtful, and damaged English
ladies, who are constantly seen in company of their faithful attendant
for the time being in these gay haunts of dissipation, the old major,
with eager garrulity and mischievous relish told his nephew wonderful
particulars regarding the lives of these heroines; and diverted the
young man with a thousand scandals. Egad, he felt himself quite young
again, he remarked to Pen, as, rouged and grinning, her enormous
chasseur behind her bearing her shawl, the Princess Obstropski smiled
and recognized and accosted him. He remembered her in '14 when she was
an actress of the Paris Boulevard, and the Emperor Alexander's
aid-de-camp Obstropski (a man of great talents, who knew a good deal
about the Emperor Paul's death, and was a devil to play) married her.
He most courteously and respectfully asked leave to call upon the
princess, and to present to her his nephew, Mr. Arthur Pendennis; and
he pointed out to the latter a half-dozen of other personages whose
names were as famous, and whose histories were as edifying. What would
poor Helen have thought, could she have heard those tales, or known to
what kind of people her brother-in-law was presenting her son? Only
once, leaning on Arthur's arm, she had passed through the room where
the green tables were prepared for play, and the croaking croupiers
were calling out their fatal words of _Rouge gagne_ and _Couleur
perd_. She had shrunk terrified out of the pandemonium, imploring Pen,
extorting from him a promise, on his word of honor, that he would
never play at those tables; and the scene which so frightened the
simple widow, only amused the worldly old veteran, and made him young
again! He could breath the air cheerfully which stifled her. Her right
was not his right: his food was her poison. Human creatures are
constituted thus differently, and with this variety the marvelous
world is peopled. To the credit of Mr. Pen, let it be said, that he
kept honestly the promise made to his mother, and stoutly told his
uncle of his intention to abide by it.
[Illustration]
When the major arrived, his presence somehow cast a damp upon at least
three persons of our little party--upon Laura, who had any thing but
respect for him; upon Warrington, whose manner toward him showed an
involuntary haughtiness and contempt; and upon the timid and alarmed
widow, who dreaded lest he should interfere with her darling, though
almost desperate projects for her boy. And, indeed, the major, unknown
to himself, was the bearer of tidings which were to bring about a
catastrophe in the affairs of all our friends.
Pen with his two ladies had apartments in the town of Rosenbad; honest
Warrington had lodgings hard by; the major, on arrival at Rosenbad,
had, as befitted his dignity, taken up his quarters at one of the
great hotels, at the Roman Emperor or the Four Seasons, where two or
three hundred gamblers, pleasure-seekers, or invalids, sate down and
over-ate themselves daily at the enormous table d'hote. To this hotel
Pen went on the morning after the major's arrival dutifully to pay his
respects to his uncle, and found the latter's sitting-room duly
prepared and arranged by Mr. Morgan, with the major's hats brushed,
and his coats laid out: his dispatch-boxes and umbrella-cases, his
guide-books, passports, maps, and other elaborate necessaries of the
English traveler, all as trim and ready as they could be in their
master's own room in Jermyn-street. Every thing was ready, from the
medicine-bottle fresh filled from the pharmacien's, down to the old
fellow's prayer-book, without which he never traveled, for he made a
point of appearing at the English church at every place which he
honored with a stay. "Every body did it," he said; "every English
gentleman did it," and this pious man would as soon have thought of
not calling upon the English embassador in a continental town, as of
not showing himself at the national place of worship.
The old gentleman had been to take one of the baths for which Rosenbad
is famous, and which every body takes, and his after-bath toilet was
not yet completed when Pen arrived. The elder called out to Arthur in
a cheery voice from the inner apartment, in which he and Morgan were
engaged, and the valet presently came in, bearing a little packet to
Pen's address--Mr. Arthur's letters and papers, Morgan said, which he
had brought from Mr. Arthur's chambers in London, and which consisted
chiefly of numbers of the "Pall Mall Gazette," which our friend Mr.
Finucane thought his _collaborateur_ would like to see. The papers
were tied together: the letters in an envelope, addressed to Pen, in
the last-named gentleman's handwriting.
Among the letters there was a little note addressed, as a former
letter we have heard of had been, to "Arthur Pendennis, Esquire,"
which Arthur opened with a start and a blush, and read with a very
keen pang of interest, and sorrow, and regard. She had come to
Arthur's house, Fanny Bolton said--and found that he was gone--gone
away to Germany without ever leaving a word for her--or answer to her
last letter, in which she prayed but for one word of kindness--or the
books which he had promised her in happier times, before he was ill,
and which she would like to keep in remembrance of him. She said she
would not reproach those who had found her at his bedside when he was
in the fever, and knew nobody, and who had turned the poor girl away
without a word. She thought she should have died, she said, of that,
but Doctor Goodenough had kindly tended her, and kept her life, when,
perhaps, the keeping of it was of no good, and she forgave every body:
and as for Arthur, she would pray for him forever. And when he was so
ill, and they cut off his hair, she had made so free as to keep one
little lock for herself, and that she owned. And might she still keep
it, or would his mamma order that that should be gave up too? She was
willing to obey him in all things, and couldn't but remember that once
he was so kind, oh! so good and kind! to his poor Fanny. When Major
Pendennis, fresh and smirking from his toilet, came out of his bedroom
to his sitting-room, he found Arthur with this note before him, and an
expression of savage anger on his face, which surprised the elder
gentleman. "What news from London, my boy?" he rather faintly asked;
"are the duns at you that you look so glum?"
"Do you know any thing about this letter, sir?" Arthur asked.
"What letter, my good sir?" said the other drily, at once perceiving
what had happened.
"You know what I mean--about, about Miss--about Fanny Bolton--the
poor dear little girl," Arthur broke out. "When was she in my room?
Was she there when I was delirious--I fancied she was--was she? Who
sent her out of my chambers? Who intercepted her letters to me? Who
dared to do it? Did you do it, uncle?"
"It's not my practice to tamper with gentlemen's letters, or to answer
damned impertinent questions," Major Pendennis cried out, in a great
tremor of emotion and indignation. "There was a girl in your rooms
when I came up at great personal inconveinence, daymy--and to meet
with a return of this kind for my affection to you, is not pleasant,
by Gad, sir--not at all pleasant."
"That's not the question, sir," Arthur said hotly--"and--and, I beg
your pardon, uncle. You were, you always have been, most kind to me:
but I say again, did you say any thing harsh to this poor girl. Did
you send her away from me?"
"I never spoke a word to the girl," the uncle said, "and I never sent
her away from you, and know no more about her, and wish to know no
more about her, than about the man in the moon."
"Then it's my mother that did it," Arthur broke out. "Did my mother
send that poor child away?"
"I repeat I know nothing about it, sir," the elder said testily.
"Let's change the subject, if you please."
"I'll never forgive the person who did it," said Arthur, bouncing up
and seizing his hat.
The major cried out, "Stop, Arthur, for God's sake, stop;" but before
he had uttered his sentence Arthur had rushed out of the room, and at
the next minute the major saw him striding rapidly down the street
that led toward his home.
"Get breakfast!" said the old fellow to Morgan, and he wagged his head
and sighed as he looked out of the window. "Poor Helen--poor soul!
There'll be a row. I knew there would: and begad all the fat's in
the fire."
When Pen reached home he only found Warrington in the ladies'
drawing-room, waiting their arrival in order to conduct them to the
room where the little English colony at Rosenbad held their Sunday
church. Helen and Laura had not appeared as yet; the former was
ailing, and her daughter was with her. Pen's wrath was so great that
he could not defer expressing it. He flung Fanny's letter across the
table to his friend. "Look there, Warrington," he said; "she tended me
in my illness, she rescued me out of the jaws of death, and this is
the way they have treated the dear little creature. They have kept her
letters from me; they have treated me like a child, and her like a
dog, poor thing! My mother has done this."
"If she has, you must remember it is your mother," Warrington
interposed.
"It only makes the crime the greater, because it is she who has done
it," Pen answered. "She ought to have been the poor girl's defender,
not her enemy: she ought to go down on her knees and ask pardon of
her. I ought! I will! I am shocked at the cruelty which has been shown
her. What? She gave me her all, and this is her return! She sacrifices
every thing for me, and they spurn her."
"Hush!" said Warrington, "they can hear you from the next room."
"Hear; let them hear!" Pen cried out, only so much the louder. "Those
may overhear my talk who intercept my letters. I say this poor girl
has been shamefully used, and I will do my best to right her; I will."
The door of the neighboring room opened and Laura came forth with pale
and stern face. She looked at Pen with glances from which beamed
pride, defiance, aversion. "Arthur, your mother is very ill," she
said; "it is a pity that you should speak so loud as to disturb her."
"It is a pity that I should have been obliged to speak at all," Pen
answered. "And I have more to say before I have done."
"I should think what you have to say will hardly be fit for me to
hear," Laura said, haughtily.
"You are welcome to hear it or not, as you like," said Mr. Pen. "I
shall go in now and speak to my mother."
Laura came rapidly forward, so that she should not be overheard by her
friend within. "Not now, sir," she said to Pen. "You may kill her if
you do. Your conduct has gone far enough to make her wretched."
"What conduct?" cried out Pen, in a fury. "Who dares impugn it? Who
dares meddle with me? Is it you who are the instigator of this
persecution?"
"I said before it was a subject of which it did not become me to hear
or to speak," Laura said. "But as for mamma, if she had acted
otherwise than she did with regard to--to the person about whom you
seem to take such an interest, it would have been I that must have
quitted your house, and not that--that person."
"By heavens! this is too much," Pen cried out, with a violent
execration.
"Perhaps that is what you wished," Laura said, tossing her head up.
"No more of this, if you please; I am not accustomed to hear such
subjects spoken of in such language;" and with a stately courtesy the
young lady passed to her friend's room, looking her adversary full in
the face as she retreated and closed the door upon him.
Pen was bewildered with wonder, perplexity, fury, at this monstrous
and unreasonable persecution. He burst out into a loud and bitter
laugh as Laura quitted him, and with sneers and revilings, as a man
who jeers under an operation, ridiculed at once his own pain and his
persecutor's anger. The laugh, which was one of bitter humor, and no
unmanly or unkindly expression of suffering under most cruel and
unmerited torture, was heard in the next apartment, as some of his
unlucky previous expressions had been, and, like them, entirely
misinterpreted by the hearers. It struck like a dagger into the
wounded and tender heart of Helen; it pierced Laura, and inflamed the
high-spirited girl, with scorn and anger. "And it was to this hardened
libertine," she thought--"to this boaster of low intrigues, that I
had given my heart away." "He breaks the most sacred laws," thought
Helen. "He prefers the creature of his passion to his own mother; and
when he is upbraided, he laughs, and glories in his crime. 'She gave
me her all,' I heard him say it," argued the poor widow; "and he
boasts of it, and laughs, and breaks his mother's heart." The emotion,
the shame, the grief, the mortification almost killed her. She felt
she should die of his unkindness.
Warrington thought of Laura's speech--"Perhaps that is what you
wished." "She loves Pen still," he said. "It was jealousy made her
speak."--"Come away, Pen. Come away, and let us go to church and get
calm. You must explain this matter to your mother. She does not appear
to know the truth: nor do you quite, my good fellow. Come away, and
let us talk about it." And again he muttered to himself, "'Perhaps
that is what you wished.' Yes, she loves him. Why shouldn't she love
him? Whom else would I have her love? What can she be to me but the
dearest, and the fairest, and the best of women?"
So, leaving the women similarly engaged within, the two gentlemen
walked away, each occupied with his own thoughts, and silent for a
considerable space. "I must set this matter right," thought honest
George, "as she loves him still--I must set his mind right about the
other woman." And with this charitable thought, the good fellow began
to tell more at large what Bows had said to him regarding Miss
Bolton's behavior and fickleness, and he described how the girl was no
better than a little light-minded flirt; and, perhaps, he exaggerated
the good humor and contentedness which he had himself, as he thought,
witnessed in her behavior in the scene with Mr. Huxter.
Now, all Bows's statements had been colored by an insane jealousy and
rage on that old man's part; and instead of allaying Pen's renascent
desire to see his little conquest again, Warrington's accounts
inflamed and angered Pendennis, and made him more anxious than before
to set himself right, as he persisted in phrasing it, with Fanny. They
arrived at the church-door presently; but scarce one word of the
service, and not a syllable of Mr. Shamble's sermon, did either of
them comprehend, probably--so much was each engaged with his own
private speculations. The major came up to them after the service,
with his well-brushed hat and wig, and his jauntiest, most cheerful
air. He complimented them upon being seen at church; again he said
that every _comme-il-faut_ person made a point of attending the
English service abroad; and he walked back with the young men,
prattling to them in garrulous good-humor, and making bows to his
acquaintances as they passed; and thinking innocently that Pen and
George were both highly delighted by his anecdotes, which they
suffered to run on in a scornful and silent acquiescence.
At the time of Mr. Shamble's sermon (an erratic Anglican divine hired
for the season at places of English resort, and addicted to debts,
drinking, and even to roulette, it was said), Pen, chafing under the
persecution which his womankind inflicted upon him, had been
meditating a great act of revolt and of justice, as he had worked
himself up to believe; and Warrington on his part had been thinking
that a crisis in his affairs had likewise come, and that it was
necessary for him to break away from a connection which every day made
more and more wretched and dear to him. Yes, the time was come. He
took those fatal words, "Perhaps that is what you wished," as a text
for a gloomy homily, which he preached to himself, in the dark pew of
his own heart, while Mr. Shamble was feebly giving utterance to his
sermon.