Sir Brook Fossbrooke, Volume I.. Lever Charles James
comes Tom. May I tell him this story, or will you tell him yourself?”
“Not either, my dear Lucy. Your brother’s blood is over-hot as it is. Let him not have any promptings to such exploits as these.”
“But may I tell papa?”
“Just as well not, Lucy. There were scores of wild things attributed to me in those days. He may possibly remember some of them, and begin to suspect that his daughter might be in better company.”
“How was it that you never told me of this exploit?” asked she, looking, not without admiration, at the hard stern features before her.
“My dear child, egotism is the besetting sin of old people, and even the most cautious lapse into it occasionally. Set me once a-talking of myself, all my prudence, all my reserve vanishes; so that, as a measure of safety for my friends and myself too, I avoid the theme when I can. There! Tom is beckoning to us. Let us go to him at once.”
Holy Island, or Inishcaltra, to give it its Irish name, is a wild spot, with little remarkable about it, save the ruins of seven churches and a curious well of fabulous depth. It was, however, a favorite spot with the vicar, whose taste in localities was somehow always associated with some feature of festivity, the great merit of the present spot being that you could dine without any molestation from beggars. In such estimation, indeed, did he hold the class, that he seriously believed their craving importunity to be one of the chief reasons of dyspepsia, and was profoundly convinced that the presence of Lazarus at his gate counterbalanced many of the goods which fortune had bestowed upon Dives.
“Here we dine in real comfort,” said he, as he seated himself under the shelter of an ivy-covered wall, with a wide reach of the lake at his feet.
“When I come back from California with that million or two,” said Tom, “I ‘ll build a cottage here, where we can all come and dine continually.”
“Let us keep the anniversary of the present day as a sort of foundation era,” said the vicar.
“I like everything that promises pleasure,” said Sir Brook, “but I like to stipulate that we do not draw too long a bill on Fortune. Think how long a year is. This time twelvemonth, for example, you, my dear doctor, may be a bishop, and not over inclined to these harmless levities. Tom there will be, as he hints, gold-crushing, at the end of the earth. Trafford, not improbably, ruling some rajah’s kingdom in the far East. Of your destiny, fair Lucy, brightest of all, it is not for me to speak. Of my own it is not worth speaking.”
“Nolo episcopari,” said the vicar; “pass me the Madeira.”
“You forget, perhaps, that is the phrase for accepting the mitre,” said Sir Brook, laughing. “Bishops, like belles, say ‘No’ when they mean ‘Yes.’”
“And who told you that belles did?” broke in Lucy. “I am in a sad minority here, but I stand up for my sex.”
“I repeat a popular prejudice, fair lady.”
“And Lucy will not have it that belles are as illogical as bishops? I see I was right in refusing the bench,” said the vicar.
“What bright boon of Fortune is Trafford meditating the rejection of?” said Sir Brook; and the young fellow’s cheek grew crimson as he tried to laugh off the reply.
“Who made this salad?” cried Tom.
“It was I; who dares to question it?” said Lucy. “The doctor has helped himself twice to it, and that test I take to be a certificate to character.”
“I used to have some skill in dressing a salad, but I have foregone the practice for many a day; my culinary gift got me sent out of Austria in twenty-four hours. Oh, it ‘s nothing that deserves the name of a story,” said Sir Brook, as the others looked at him for an explanation. “It was as long ago as the year 1806. Sir Robert Adair had been our minister at Vienna, when, a rupture taking place between the two Governments, he was recalled. He did not, however, return to England, but continued to live as a private citizen at Vienna. Strangely enough, from the moment that our embassy ceased to be recognized by the Government, our countrymen became objects of especial civility. I myself, amongst the rest, was the bien-venu in some of the great houses, and even invited by Count Cobourg Cohari to those déjeuners which he gave with such splendor at Maria Hülfe.
“At one of these, as a dish of salad was handed round, instead of eating it, like the others, I proceeded to make a very complicated dressing for it on my plate, calling for various condiments, and seasoning my mess in a most refined and ingenious manner. No sooner had I given the finishing touch to my great achievement than the Grand-Duchess Sophia, who it seems had watched the whole performance, sent a servant round to beg that I would send her my plate. She accompanied the request with a little bow and a smile whose charm I can still recall. Whatever the reason, before I awoke next morning, an agent of the police entered my room and informed me my passports were made out for Dresden, and that his orders were to give me the pleasure of his society till I crossed the frontier. There was no minister, no envoy to appeal to, and nothing left but to comply. They said ‘Go,’ and I went.”
“And all for a dish of salad!” cried the vicar.
“All for the bright eyes of an archduchess, rather,” broke in Lucy, laughing.
The old man’s grateful smile at the compliment to his gallantry showed how, even in a heart so world-worn, the vanity of youth survived.
“I declare it was very hard,” said Tom, – “precious hard.”
“If you mean to give up the salad, so think I too,” cried the vicar.
“I ‘ll be shot if I ‘d have gone,” broke in Trafford.
“You’d probably have been shot if you had stayed,” replied Tom.
“There are things we submit to in life, not because the penalty of resistance affrights us, but because we half acquiesce in their justice. You, for instance, Trafford, are well pleased to be here on leave, and enjoy yourself, as I take it, considerably; and yet the call of duty – some very commonplace duty, perhaps – would make you return tomorrow in all haste.”
“Of course it would,” said Lucy.
“I ‘m not so sure of it,” murmured Trafford, sullenly; “I ‘d rather go into close arrest for a week than I ‘d lose this day here.”
“Bravo! here’s your health, Lionel,” cried Tom. “I do like to hear a fellow say he is willing to pay the cost of what pleases him.”
“I must preach wholesome doctrine, my young friends,” broke in the vicar. “Now that we have dined well, I would like to say aword on abstinence.”
“You mean to take no coffee, doctor, then?” asked Lucy, laughing.
“That I do, my sweet child, – coffee and a pipe, too, for I know you are tolerant of tobacco.”
“I hope she is,” said Tom, “or she ‘d have a poor time of it in the house with me.”
“I ‘ll put no coercion upon my tastes on this occasion, for I ‘ll take a stroll through the ruins, and leave you to your wine,” said she, rising.
They protested, in a mass, against her going. “We cannot lock the door, Lucy, de facto,” said Sir Brook, “but we do it figuratively.”
“And in that case I make my escape by the window,” said she, springing through an old lancet-shaped orifice in the Abbey wall.
“There goes down the sun and leaves us but a gray twilight,” said Sir Brook, mournfully, as he looked after her. “If there were only enough beauty on earth, I verily believe we might dispense with parsons.”
“Push me over the bird’s-eye, and let me nourish myself till your millennium comes,” said the vicar.
“What a charming girl she is! her very beauty fades away before the graceful attraction of her manner!” whispered Sir Brook to the doctor.
“Oh, if you but knew her as I do! If you but knew how, sacrificing all the springtime