Lieben Freunde! Es gab schön're Zeiten
Als die unsern--das ist nicht zu streiten!
Und ein edler Volk hat einst gelebt.
Könnte die Geschichte davon schweigen
Tausend Steine würden redend zeugen
Die man aus dem Schooss der Erde gräbt.
Doch es ist dahin, es ist verschwunden,
Dieses hochbegünstigste Geschlecht;
Wir, wir leben! Unser sind die Stunden,
Und der Lebende hat Recht.
SCHILLER.
"And so you wish you were a pirate, Miss Fitzpatrick," said Mr. Haveloc,
as they stood on the deck of his yacht. "I commend your taste. These
pirates were pretty fellows in rhyme."
"It would be rather late in the day to commence Viking, would it not?"
said Mrs. Fitzpatrick.
"Oh no!" said Mr. Haveloc; "my yacht is quite at Miss Fitzpatrick's
service. I do not despair of her making prize of some solitary fishing
boat on a dark night. And only think, Miss Fitzpatrick, how excellent
the herrings would taste, that you had come by in so meritorious a way."
"I wished to be descended from a pirate," said Aveline, "don't you
perceive the amazing difference?"
"Oh, very great! You wish for all their propensities, without the power
to put them in practice."
"After all, there were fine things done by those Vikinger," said
Aveline. "They had courage."
"Oh, courage! that is born with a man; if he has it not, it is a
deformity, not a vice. Just as if he were born without a nose."
"You would respect courage more, Mr. Haveloc," said Aveline, "if you
knew what fear was."
"I never had such a compliment paid me before," said Mr. Haveloc,
laughing.
"We have a right to pay you compliments, you know," said Mrs.
Fitzpatrick, who was seated a little apart, with a book in her hand.
"But you do not stand up for the water thieves, or land thieves either."
"He pretends to have no enthusiasm," said Aveline, smiling.
"On the contrary," said Mr. Haveloc, "I admit that time mellows the
proceedings of such gentry; and I own to an enthusiastic desire to see
them treated as they deserve."
"I was very glad, Miss Fitzpatrick, when our Calabrian friends were duly
sent to the galleys."
"You could not have a prettier name for your yacht, 'the Ariel,'" said
Aveline. "I am sure it is a beautiful craft, though I am no judge of
such things."
"The Ariel was christened before I had her," said Mr. Haveloc. "If I
meant to keep her, I should take the liberty to change her name."
"And what would you call her?" asked Aveline, with some curiosity.
Mr. Haveloc, hesitated a little, and then said, "the Pearl."
"And I am very fond of pearls," said Aveline. "How many things there
are, Mr. Haveloc, the very names of which recalls much that is beautiful
in poetry to one's memory. The Pearl, the violet, the lark."
"True enough," said Mr. Haveloc, "a robin is a prettier bird, but he has
not been so much be-rhymed. A pistol is a handier weapon than a sword,
but it would make a sorry figure in a lyric."
"And a grand pianoforte," said Aveline, laughing, "will never be
appreciated with tears and moonlight, like a lute."
"And a rascally pirate will be hung in chains, to the great delight of
all sober people, while a horse Viking, or even a Spanish buccaneer,
would be exalted in ballad, or blank verse."
"Allow," said Aveline, "that people cannot live _well_, who live only in
the present time."
"And that people cannot live wisely, who live in the past or the
future," said Mr. Haveloc.
"I do not know whether it is too serious an allusion," said Aveline;
"but I cannot help recollecting that 'the children of this world are
wiser in their generation, than the children of light.'"
Mr. Haveloc remained silent for some moments. "I wonder what that means
exactly," said he, at last.
"It means, I think, to give some little comfort to the upright, when
they find that all through their lives they are wronged and surpassed by
those who are unscrupulous in their tools and weapons," said Mrs.
Fitzpatrick.
"Cold comfort," said Mr. Haveloc, still musing.
"I think not so," replied Mrs. Fitzpatrick. "I think it is comfort
enough if an honest man is told, on the highest authority--it will be
so--you will not surpass--you will not be enriched--you will not be well
spoken of, like your unprincipled neighbour--you will be deceived and
impoverished by those who are more skilful than yourself, skilful in
arts which your profession forbids you to use. If they are not told
this, they might become restless and dissatisfied, and attribute to
themselves some of the failure which belongs to the fact, that this
world is the home of the wicked, but a strange land to the Christian
pilgrim."
Mr. Haveloc, seemed much struck by her remarks, but remained silent.
"Mr. Lindsay is an illustration of mamma's idea," said Aveline, "he is
much too honest ever to be rich. Plain dealing never answers with
common minds; and I leave you to judge of the proportion of superior
people that fall in the way of a country practitioner."
"You think with the old poet," said Mr. Haveloc.
"The stars are not more distant from the earth,
Than profit is from honesty!"
"That is very well said," remarked Mrs. Fitzpatrick, "whose is it?"
"Beaumont and Fletcher's," he replied.
"I wish you would read to us 'The Faithful Shepherdess,'" said Aveline,
"you were to have done so at Sorrento, only you had not the Author with
you."
"Willingly, if you are in the humour for it," said Mr. Haveloc; "but
first, Miss Fitzpatrick, I must see you look a little more comfortable;
I shall order up a heap of cushions, and install you like 'Lalla Rookh,'
before I begin to read."
"Oh! what a Sybarite!" cried Aveline, as he arranged a pile of red silk
cushions for her upon the deck, "do look, mamma!"
"I am much obliged to Mr. Haveloc," said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, "and feel
very little disposed to quarrel with his luxurious equipments, for
really Aveline you do begin to look rather fagged."
"I hope he is clever, this country practitioner," said Mr. Haveloc,
looking up suddenly from his task.
"Clever!" cried Aveline. "Mamma would be highly offended with any one
else who should presume to call her Mr. Lindsay clever. He is a man of
excellent judgment, Mr. Haveloc."
"I am glad of it," said Mr. Haveloc, "for your sake."
Aveline smiled and settled herself to listen.
The day was beautiful, the coast in the distance was reduced to a
miniature picture steeped in the most delicious and variegated tints.
The air was hot and still, and nothing interrupted the silence but the
flapping of a sail, and the gentle sound of the water rising and falling
slowly against the side of the vessel.
"We make but little way," said Mr. Haveloc.
"That does not matter. It is pleasant to lie at anchor. Suppose we were
becalmed in the midst of the Pacific?" said Aveline.
"With one day's luncheon on board," said Mr. Haveloc.
"It is very pleasant to have run into some great danger, after it is all
over," said Aveline.
"That makes the pleasure of horrid dreams," said Mr. Haveloc.
"But they are not distinct--real enough," said Aveline. "Every thing
seems to happen through a ground-glass."
"One would think you took opium Miss Fitzpatrick," said Mr. Haveloc
laughing.
"So she does, regularly," said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, with an anxious look,
and fixing her eyes upon his face.
He looked surprised and pained, opened the book hastily, and began to
read.
Aveline was enchanted with 'the Faithful Shepherdess.' Half rising on
her cushions, with cheeks flushed, and her large transparent eyes wide
open, she feared to lose a single word.
"That is surely the brightest pastoral ever written," said she, as he
laid down the book at the close of the first act.
"Do you like it better than 'Comus?'" he asked.
"I do not like to compare them," said Aveline. "But there seems so much
less effort in Beaumont and Fletcher's verse. And what stately
simplicity in the opening,--what richness in the lyrical movements! They
seem to have been inspired by the tawney sunshine of the Greek isles;
while all the woodland scenery seems glittering with the fresh dew of an
English summer's night."
"And then Milton's 'Comus' labours under the slight disadvantage of not
being written first," said Mr. Haveloc.
"Ah! you mean to insinuate that he borrowed some of the ideas," said
Aveline laughing.
"Oh! he never borrowed; his was highway robbery, piracy, Miss
Fitzpatrick."
"You do not like Milton, I see," said Aveline.
"No. All his feelings were violently personal. His Theory of Divorce was
suggested by his sour discontent of his wife. His democracy by the party
he espoused. His religion was the harsh bigotry of his faction, not that
which improves the individual. And the much admired anecdote of knocking
up his daughters in the night, to write his verses, appears to me the
coolest instance of selfish vanity I can now recollect. Fancy, Miss
Fitzpatrick, your being rudely aroused from some delicious dream to pen
down the leaden stanzas of 'Paradise Regained.'"
"Mamma thinks you are talking treason," said Aveline.
"All the good that I know of him is, that when he had got hold of a
wrong principle, he was consistent in holding it," continued Mr.
Haveloc. "You know he persisted in rejecting the office that Charles the
Second was so generous as to offer him."
"It was generous," said Aveline, "for Milton's poetry had not then
received the stamp of time, and Charles was not compelled, by opinion,
to be liberal to the author of 'Paradise Lost.'"
They continued conversing upon a variety of topics until it was time to
take luncheon; and then Mr. Haveloc would not suffer Aveline to move. He
brought up every thing upon the deck that he thought she could fancy,
and waited upon her with the utmost care.
He was always morbidly affected by sickness. If he had a servant ill,
nothing could equal his kindness and attention; and, therefore, it was
not surprising that he should show so much solicitude to Aveline's
comforts.
In the course of the afternoon, she began to feel very chilly. One shawl
after another was wrapped round her without effect. Mr. Haveloc was
alarmed, but Mrs. Fitzpatrick said it was always so about that time, and
that it would pass away. But when it did pass away, Aveline was in such
a state of exhaustion that she could scarcely move into the boat, which
was lowered to take her to the shore. A fresh breeze had risen; it was
rather rough landing. The boat could not be got close enough to the
jetty. Mr. Haveloc, after exchanging a few whispered words with Mrs.
Fitzpatrick, sprang out, knee-deep in the water, took Aveline in his
arms, and carried her not only to land, but across the shingles, and up
the rocky pathway to their cottage, and placed her in safety on the sofa
in the drawing-room window, as Mrs. Fitzpatrick, who had been assisted,
by the steward, came in at the glass-doors.
Aveline was very much shocked, but what could have been done? She was
unable to walk, and the choice rested between Mr. Haveloc and the
steward.
Mr. Haveloc began to make his apologies, but they both laughed before he
had concluded them. He was earnest in pressing his further services upon
the ladies--he wished to be made of use in fetching their medical man.
Aveline laughed, and assured him that she was no worse than usual. She
hardly knew what Mr. Lindsay would say to her if she summoned him for
nothing. He was very merciless to imaginary ailments.
He could scarcely conceal the mournful interest she inspired. So
attenuated, so brilliant with feverish excitement. But assuming a gay
air, he took up his hat, told Mrs. Fitzpatrick he should wait on her
the next morning, to learn whether she had forgiven him for tiring out
her daughter, and begged Aveline to put the best face she could upon the
matter, lest Mrs. Fitzpatrick should put a stop to all excursions for
the future.