As Lucy, looking towards the stranger, said something in compliment, she observed a vague, and, as it were, covert smile upon his countenance, which immediately, and, as if by sympathy, conjured one to her own. The hero of the adventure, however, in a very grave tone, replied to her compliment, at the same time bowing profoundly: –
‘Mention it not, madam! I were unworthy of the name of a Briton, and a man, could I pass the highway without relieving the distress, or lightening the burden, of a fellow-creature. And,’ continued the stranger, after a momentary pause, colouring while he spoke, and concluding in the high-flown gallantry of the day, ‘methinks it were sufficient reward, had I saved the whole church, instead of one of its most valuable members, to receive the thanks of a lady, whom I might reasonably take for one of those celestial beings to whom we have been piously taught that the church is especially the care!’
Though there might have been something really ridiculous in this overstrained compliment, coupled as it was with the preservation of Dr Slopperton, yet, coming from the mouth of one whom Lucy thought the very handsomest person she had ever seen, it appeared to her anything but absurd; and, for a very long time afterwards, her heart thrilled with pleasure when she remembered that the cheek of the speaker had glowed, and his voice had trembled as he spoke it.
The conversation now, turning from robbers in particular, dwelt upon robberies in general. It was edifying to hear the honest indignation with which the stranger spoke of the lawless depredators with whom the country, in that day of Macheaths, was infested.
‘A pack of infamous rascals!’ said he, in a glow, ‘who attempt to justify their misdeeds by the example of honest men; and who say, that they do no more than is done by lawyers and doctors, soldiers, clergymen, and ministers of state. Pitiful delusion, or rather shameless hypocrisy!’
‘It all comes of educating the poor,’ said the doctor. ‘The moment they pretend to judge the conduct of their betters – there’s an end of all order! They see nothing sacred in the laws, though we hang the dogs ever so fast; and the very peers of the land, spiritual and temporal, cease to be venerable in their eyes.’
‘Talking of peers,’ said Mrs Slopperton, ‘I hear that Lord Mauleverer is to pass by this road tonight, on his way to Mauleverer Park. Do you know his lordship, Miss Lucy? He is very intimate with your uncle.’
‘I have only seen him once,’ answered Lucy.
‘Are you sure that his lordship will come this road?’ asked the stranger, carelessly. ‘I heard something of it this morning, but did not know it was settled.’
‘Oh, quite so!’ rejoined Mrs Slopperton. ‘His lordship’s gentleman wrote for post-horses to meet his lordship at Wyburn, about three miles on the other side of the village, at ten o’clock tonight. His lordship is very impatient of delay.’
‘Pray,’ said the doctor, who had not much heeded this turn in the conversation, and was now ‘on hospitable cares intent’, ‘pray, sir, if not impertinent, are you visiting, or lodging in the neighbourhood; or, will you take a bed with us?’
‘You are extremely kind, my dear sir, but I fear I must soon wish you good evening. I have to look after a little property I have some miles hence, which, indeed, brought me down into this part of the world.’
‘Property! In what direction, sir, if I may ask?’ quoth the doctor. ‘I know the country for miles.’
‘Do you, indeed? Where’s my property, you say? Why, it is rather difficult to describe it, and it is, after all, a mere trifle: it is only some common-land near the high-road, and I came down to try the experiment of hedging and draining.’
‘’Tis a good plan, if one has capital, and does not require a speedy return.’
‘Yes, but one likes a good interest for the loss of principal, and a speedy return is always desirable; although, alas! it is often attended with risk!’
‘I hope, sir,’ said the doctor, ‘if you must leave us so soon, that your property will often bring you into our neighbourhood.’
‘You overpower me with so much unexpected goodness,’ answered the stranger. ‘To tell you the truth, nothing can give me greater pleasure than to meet those again who have once obliged me.’
‘Whom you have obliged, rather!’ cried Mrs Slopperton, and then added, in a loud whisper to Lucy, ‘How modest! But it is always so with true courage!’
‘I assure you, madam,’ returned the benevolent stranger, ‘that I never think twice of the little favours I render my fellow-men – my only hope is, that they may be as forgetful as myself.’
Charmed with so much unaffected goodness of disposition, the Dr and Mrs Slopperton now set up a sort of duet in praise of their guest: after enduring their commendations and compliments for some minutes with much grimace of disavowal and diffidence, the stranger’s modesty seemed at last to take pain at the excess of their gratitude; and, accordingly, pointing to the clock, which was within a few minutes of nine, he said –
‘I fear, my respected host, and my admired hostess, that I must now leave you; I have far to go.’
‘But are you yourself not afraid of the highwaymen?’ cried Mrs Slopperton, interrupting him.
‘The highwaymen!’ said the stranger, smiling. ‘No! I do not fear them; besides, I have little about me worth robbing.’
‘Do you superintend your property yourself?’ said the doctor, who farmed his own glebe, and who, unwilling to part with so charming a guest, seized him now by the button.
‘Superintend it myself? Why, not exactly. There is a bailiff, whose views of things don’t agree with mine, and who now and then gives me a good deal of trouble!’
‘Then why don’t you discharge him altogether?’
‘Ah! I wish I could: but ’tis a necessary evil. We landed proprietors, my dear sir, must always be plagued with something of the sort. For my part, I have found those cursed bailiffs would take away, if they could, all the little property one has been trying to accumulate. But,’ abruptly changing his manner into one of great softness, ‘could I not proffer my services and my companionship to this young lady? Would she allow me to conduct her home, and, indeed, stamp this day upon my memory as one of the few delightful ones I have ever known?’
‘Thank you, dear sir,’ said Mrs Slopperton, answering at once for Lucy; ‘it is very considerate of you; and I am sure, my love, I could not think of letting you go home alone with old John, after such an adventure to the poor dear doctor.’
Lucy began an excuse which the good lady would not hear. But as the servant whom Mr Brandon was to send with a lantern to attend his daughter home had not arrived, and as Mrs Slopperton, despite her prepossessions in favour of her husband’s deliverer, did not for a moment contemplate his accompanying, without any other attendance, her young friend across the fields at that unseasonable hour, the stranger was forced, for the present, to re-assume his seat; an open harpsichord at one end of the room gave him an opportunity to make some remark upon music, and this introducing an eulogium on Lucy’s voice from Mrs Slopperton, necessarily ended in a request to Miss Brandon to indulge the stranger with a song. Never had Lucy, who was not a shy girl – she was too innocent to be bashful – felt nervous hitherto in singing before a stranger; but now she hesitated and faltered, and went through a whole series of little natural affectations before she complied with the request. She chose a song composed somewhat after the old English school, which at that time was reviving into fashion. The song, though conveying a sort of conceit, was not, perhaps, altogether without tenderness; – it was a favourite with Lucy, she scarcely knew why, and ran thus: –
LUCY’S SONG
Why sleep, ye gentle flowers, ah, why,
When tender eve is falling,
And starlight drinks the happy sigh
Of winds to fairies calling?
Calling with low and plaining note,
Most like a ringdove chiding,
Or flute faint-heard from distant boat
O’er smoothest waters gliding.
Lo, ro
und you steals the wooing breeze –
Lo, on you falls the dew!
O Sweets, awake, for scarcely these
Can charm while wanting you!
Wake ye not yet – while fast, below
The silver time is fleeing?
O Heart of mine, those flowers but show
Thine own contented being.
The twilight but preserves the bloom,
The sun can but decay;
The warmth that brings the rich perfume,
But steals the life away.
O Heart enjoy thy present calm,
Rest peaceful in the shade,
And dread the sun that gives the balm
To bid the blossom fade.
When Lucy ended, the stranger’s praise was less loud than either the doctor’s or his lady’s; but how far more sweet it was; and for the first time in her life Lucy made the discovery, that eyes can praise as well as lips. For our part, we have often thought that that discovery is an epoch in life.
It was now that Mrs Slopperton declared her thorough conviction that the stranger himself could sing – ‘He had that about him,’ she said, ‘which made her sure of it.’
‘Indeed, dear madam,’ said he, with his usual undefinable half-frank, half-latent smile, ‘my voice is but so-so, and my memory so indifferent, that even in the easiest passages I soon come to a stand. My best notes are in the falsetto, and as for my execution – but we won’t talk of that.’
‘Nay, nay; you are so modest,’ said Mrs Slopperton. ‘I am sure you could oblige us if you would.’
‘Your command,’ said the stranger, moving to the harpsichord, ‘is all-sufficient; and since you, madam’ (turning to Lucy), ‘have chosen a song after the old school, may I find pardon if I do the same? My selection is, to be sure, from a lawless song-book, and is supposed to be a ballad by Robin Hood, or, at least, one of his merry men; a very different sort of outlaws from the knaves who attacked you, sir!’
With this preface, the stranger sung to a wild yet jovial air, with a tolerable voice, the following effusion: –
THE LOVE OF OUR PROFESSION; OR, THE ROBBER’S LIFE
On the stream of the World, the Robber’s life
Is borne on the blithest wave;
Now it bounds into light in a gladsome strife,
Now it laughs in its hiding cave.
At his maiden’s lattice he stays the rein,
How still is his courser proud!
(But still as a wind when it hangs o’er the main
In the breast of the boding cloud) –
With the champed bit and the arched crest,
And the eye of a listening deer,
Like valour, fretful most in rest,
Least chaf’d when in career.
Fit slave to a Lord whom all else refuse
To save at his desperate need;
By my troth! I think one whom the world pursues
Hath a right to a gallant steed.
‘Away, my beloved, I hear their feet!
I blow thee a kiss, my fair,
And I promise to bring thee, when next we meet,
A braid for thy bonny hair.
‘Hurra! For the booty! – My steed, hurra!
Thorough bush, thorough brake, go we;
And the coy Moon smiles on our merry way,
Like my own love – timidly.’
The Parson he rides with a jingling pouch,
How it blabs of the rifled poor!
The Courtier he lolls in his gilded coach,
How it smacks of a sinecure!
The Lawyer revolves in his whirling chaise
Sweet thoughts of a mischief done;
And the Lady that knoweth the card she plays
Is counting her guineas won!
‘Ho, Lady! – What, holla, ye sinless men!
My claim ye can scarce refuse;
For when honest folk live on their neighbours, then
They encroach on the Robber’s dues!’
The Lady changed cheek like a bashful maid,
The Lawyer talk’d wondrous fair,
The Parson blasphemed, and the Courtier pray’d,
And the Robber bore off his share.
‘Hurra! For the revel! My steed, hurra;
Thorough bush, thorough brake, go we!
It is ever a virtue, when others pay,
To ruffle it merrily!’
Oh! There never was life like the Robber’s – so
Jolly, and bold, and free;
And its end – why, a cheer from the crowd below,
And a leap from a leafless tree!
This very moral lay being ended, Mrs Slopperton declared it was excellent; though she confessed she thought the sentiments rather loose. Perhaps the gentleman might be induced to favour them with a song of a more refined and modern turn – something sentimental, in short. Glancing towards Lucy, the stranger answered, that he only knew one song of the kind Mrs Slopperton specified, and it was so short, that he could scarcely weary her patience by granting her request.
At this moment, the river, which was easily descried from the windows of the room, glimmered in the starlight, and directing his looks towards the water, as if the scene had suggested to him the verses he sung, he gave the following stanzas in a very low, sweet tone, and with a far purer taste than, perhaps, would have suited the preceding and ruder song.
THE WISH
As sleeps the dreaming Eve below,
Its holiest star keeps ward above,
And yonder wave begins to glow,
Like Friendship bright’ning into Love!
Ah! Would thy bosom were that stream,
Ne’er woo’d save by the virgin air! –
Ah! Would that I were that star, whose beam
Looks down and finds its image there!
Scarcely was the song ended, before the arrival of Miss Brandon’s servant was announced, and her destined escort starting up, gallantly assisted her with her cloak and her hood – happy, no doubt, to escape, in some measure, the overwhelming compliments of his entertainers.
‘But,’ said the doctor, as he shook hands with his deliverer, ‘by what name shall I remember and’ – (lifting his reverend eyes) – ‘pray for the gentleman to whom I am so much indebted?’
‘You are very kind,’ said the stranger; ‘my name is Clifford. Madam,’ (turning to Lucy) ‘may I offer my hand down the stairs?’
Lucy accepted the courtesy, and the stranger was half way down the staircase, when the doctor, stretching out his little neck, exclaimed, –
‘Good evening, sir! I do hope we shall meet again.’
‘Fear not,’ said Mr Clifford, laughing gaily, ‘I am too great a traveller to make that hope a matter of impossibility. Take care, madam – one step more.’
The night was calm and tolerably clear, though the moon had not yet risen, as Lucy and her companion passed through the fields, with the servant preceding them at a little distance with the lantern.
After a pause of some length, Clifford said, with a little hesitation, ‘Is Miss Brandon related to the celebrated barrister of her name?’
‘He is my uncle,’ said Lucy. ‘Do you know him?’
‘Only your uncle?’ said Clifford, with vivacity, and evading Lucy’s question. ‘I feared – hem! hem! – that is, I thought he might have been a nearer relation.’ There was another, but a shorter pause, when Clifford resumed, in a low voice, ‘Will Miss Brandon think me very presumptuous if I say, that a countenance like hers, once seen, can never be forgotten; and I believe, some years since, I had the honour to see her in London, at the theatre? It was but a momentary and distant glance that I was then enabled to gain; and yet,’ he added, significantly, ‘it sufficed!’
‘I was only once at the theatre while in London, some years ago,’ said Lucy, a little embarrassed, ‘and, indeed, an unpleasant occurrence which happened to my uncle, with whom I was, is sufficient to make me remember it.’
‘Ha! – And what was it
?’
‘Why, in going out of the play-house, his watch was stolen by some dexterous pickpocket.’
‘Was the rogue caught?’ asked the stranger.
‘Yes; and was sent the next day to Bridewell. My uncle said he was extremely young, and yet quite hardened. I remember that I was foolish enough, when I heard of his sentence, to beg very hard that my uncle would intercede for him; but in vain.’
‘Did you, indeed, intercede for him?’ said the stranger, in so earnest a tone that Lucy coloured for the twentieth time that night, without seeing any necessity for the blush. Clifford continued in a gayer tone, ‘Well, it is surprising how rogues hang together. I should not be greatly surprised if the person who despoiled your uncle were one of the same gang as the rascal who so terrified your worthy friend the doctor. But is his handsome old place your home?’
‘This is my home,’ answered Lucy; ‘but it is an old-fashioned, strange place: and few people, to whom it was not endeared by associations, would think it handsome.’
‘Pardon me!’ said Lucy’s companion, stopping, and surveying, with a look of great interest, the quaint pile, which now stood close before them; its dark bricks, gable-ends, and ivied walls, tinged by the starry light of the skies, and contrasted by the river, which rolled in silence below. The shutters to the large oriel window of the room, in which the squire usually sat, were still unclosed, and the steady and warm light of the apartment shone forth, casting a glow, even to the smooth waters of the river: at the same moment, too, the friendly bark of the house-dog was heard, as in welcome; and was followed by the note of the great bell, announcing the hour for the last meal of the old-fashioned and hospitable family.
Paul Clifford Page 15
