Nothing could be better timed than this amiable and conciliating address; for it not only gave cheering evidence of the perfect success of Mrs. Allen Barnaby’s happily-imagined project, but most fortunately reminded the principal actor in it of his cue, which, to way truth, he had utterly forgotten, and had not the warning voice reached him at that identical moment, he would have replied to his daughter’s speech in a manner which might have very nearly neutralised the effect of his appearance. As it was, however, all went well.
The major was far from bring a slow man, and too much depended upon his own adroitness on the present occasion for him not to rally his powers in an instant, so as to perform the part his admirable wife had allotted him, in a manner to do him as well as herself infinite honour. Great indeed would have been the shock to her nerves, if he had not done so, for she was on the stair behind him, and her noble bosom heaved with anxiety as she awaited his reply to the words above recorded. But she had no cause to fear; his words were appropriate, but his manner was better still.
“May you meet the reward you deserve, dear lady, for feelings which do you so much honour,” he said. “I will not abuse this most exemplary feeling; but if it be shared, as I trust it is, by the amiable-looking group I see behind you, I will enter amongst you with pleasure for a short interval, hoping that my presence may do. more good than harm.”
The meekness of this reply was exceedingly touching, from the modesty, the humility, and gentleness of its tone, and it instantly received the reward it deserved; for no less than six females more, all of them young, and for the most part well-looking, pressed forward to second the invitation of the first speaker.
The only one indeed, who was neither the one nor the other, was the only one also who did not appear to share the general enthusiasm. She kept herself very decidedly apart from the group that now pressed round the reverend Mr. O’Donagough, very much after the manner of bees round honey, nor did she open her lips at all, till the stewardess came in to complete her arrangements for the night, and to her she certainly took the liberty of addressing a few observations, but not in a tone sufficiently loud to prevent the eager conversation still going on among the rest of the party from continuing as uninterruptedly as if she had not spoken at all.
“I guess,” said one pretty young lady, about seventeen years of age, “that so kind and pious a gentleman as you seem to be, sir, won’t take it amiss if one of the sisters of the Needle Steeple congregation of Sandusky takes the liberty of asking your name?”
“Instead of a liberty, my dearest young lady, I can only look upon it as a beautiful proof of a lovely Christian spirit, seeking fellowship and brotherhood with the godly,” replied the reverend Mr. O’Donagough.
“Indeed, sir,” responded the fair sister, “I calculated that you would just say that, or else I’m sure I wouldn’t have spoken for the world. Thanks to my pastors and masters, I know my duty better than to put in my car out of place. And what is your name then, sir?” —
Our major was at this moment in imminent danger of exchanging a glance with his wife, so greatly amused was he at perceiving that notwithstanding the decided evangelical tendency of his fair fellow-passenger, the national catechism still evidently superseded all others in her thoughts. But luckily he remembered what he was about, and in such time too, that the profane smile was perfectly well converted into everything he wished to make it, and he replied in the very best manner possible —
“My name, my dear young lady, is O’Donagough. I am called the reverend Mr. O’Donagough.”
“Oh my!” exclaimed the charming young creature in return, “I didn’t for a single moment doubt your being the reverend, that would have been a sin indeed, that I should have had to confess at the next meeting of the sisters. In course, sir, you have heard tell of the Needle Steeple congregation of Sandusky? I believe our congregation is pretty well known by this time in most parts of the world.”
“It would be an ignorance of which I might justly be ashamed, my dear young lady, had I not heard of it; but I rejoice to say that it is long since I first became acquainted with the admirable society to which you allude. Not personally, indeed, that is a happiness to which I am still looking forward with all the eagerness of hope; but it is long since the Needle Steeple congregation of Sandusky has been known to me by the voice of fame.”
“My! Isn’t it a pleasure and a reward, Mrs. Tomkins, to hear ourselves spoken of in this way by such a pious gentleman, from over the sea too, as ’tis plain enough he is by his way?” said the young lady, clasping her hands thankfully.
“I am sure, Miss Vanderpuff, I feel it to be so, from the very top of my head to the soles of my feet, and I am thankful for the privilege of conversing with the like. It may not be that impossible, sir,” continued Mrs. Tomkins, addressing the major, with a most engaging look of affectionate humility, “indeed, I can’t say that I see it should be at all improbable, but what you crossed the water just on purpose to have a look at us. Our revivals are talked of far and near, that we all know for a certainty, and our camp-meetings have been taken as a pattern and example for miles and miles.”
“My dear ladies,” replied the Rev. Mr. O’Donagough, pressing both his hands firmly upon his heart, and raising his eyes with great fervour to the ceiling of the cabin, “my dear ladies, it is difficult for me to express my feelings at this moment! This lucky chance, this happy, thrice happy accident, inspires we with a degree of joy and thankfulness that I have no language adequately to express. Your conjecture is perfectly correct, my excellent Mrs. Tomkins. I did indeed leave my native land for the express purpose of becoming personally acquainted with the Needle Steeple congregation of Sandusky, in the delightful hope that by the most indefatigable attention on my part to its principles, and all the precious regulations respecting it, I might be enabled to carry home with me, to my own dear, but comparatively benighted country, such hints of holiness and morsels of mercy as might enable me to purify and enlighten my own beloved congregation so as to make them become to Great Britain what the Needle Steeple congregation of Sandusky has become to the United States of America. Think, then, dear ladies,” he continued, “think what must be my feelings at finding myself thus in the very midst of those for whose sake I have toiled and tossed across the wide Atlantic!”
“It is indeed a most providential blessing, sir,” said a third lady, coming forward and placing herself, with her hands crossed before her, immediately opposite to him. “I am Mrs. General Pedmington, of Mount Lebanon, and these two sisters of the congregation will be able, I expect, to give you very satisfactory reasons for thinking that if you indeed seek to make yourself acquainted with the Needle Steeple and its dependencies, you were pretty tolerably in the right path, when you happened to fall in with me.”
“Oh, my! I expect that you are, indeed!” exclaimed Miss Vanderpuff; “isn’t he, Mrs. Tomkins?”
“Indeed, sir, and that’s what you are,” returned the lady thus appealed to. “Mrs. General Pedmington is the very tiptop of the congregation in all respects, and has sat in the front row of the anxious benches for these two years past.”
“And it is she, sir, who gives up at Mount Lebanon (and a right down beautiful place it is, too) the very largest and holiest of parties throughout the Revivals. It is a privilege just to be present at one of them. I am sure no person of good judgment would ever wish to make one in a worldly-minded party afterwards.”
“A privilege, indeed!” returned the major, with a deep drawn sigh; “I know of none in any country that I should value so highly.”
“Then, in course, sir, you ought to be one of us, and such I hope you will be, Mr. O’Donagough; that, sir, I think is your name?”
Mr. O’Donagough bowed, and looked deeply grateful.
“Well then, sir, when we reach our place of destination, I hope we shall become better acquainted. My residence, as these ladies have told you, is Mount Lebanon, and when you have fixed yourself at your boarding-house, or hotel, as
the case may be, you shall be pleased to send me up your address, and I will take care that one or two of our ministers shall wait upon you, and then we will fix an evening for meeting the sisters and a few clerical individuals at my house.”
This open and decided patronage on the part of Mrs. General Pedmington induced the other professing ladies of the company to take courage, and come forward from behind the bed-curtains, where they had concealed themselves on the entrance of the reverend gentleman; and one or two among them even ventured to put into his hand some little tracts, without which, as we all know, such ladies never travel, so that in the course of a few minutes the major found himself the centre of a circle which effectually hemmed him in, and rendered his withdrawing himself from the forbidden precincts where this scene took place, a matter of very great difficulty.
While all this interesting conversation was going on in one part of the little cabin, Mrs. Allen Barnaby and her fair daughter took refuge in another, and that at the farthest possible extremity from the scene of action.
My heroine’s motive for thus withdrawing herself was one which at every period of her life, and under all variety of circumstances, had ever maintained too strong and active a hold upon her mind to be ever entirely laid aside or forgotten. Personal comfort and the best accommodation for the coming night, which the actual state of things permitted, occupied her completely during the interval which the major was employing with so much energy in propitiating the favour of his new friends. But the circumstances in which Madame Tornorino found herself were totally different from those of either of her parents. At this period she had but one sole object in view, which was to conceal the irresistible fit of laughter which seized upon her, on hearing her father make the various speeches recorded above. Under any other circumstances whatever, the unscrupulous Patty would have laughed out, without caring a single farthing whether “pa” and “ma” were angry or pleased.
But the notion which she had got into her head, that her father was in very considerable danger of being hanged, and certainly would be if discovered to be Major Allen Barnaby, instead of the reverend Mr. O’Donagough, really terrified her greatly, and she never in her life had exerted herself so strenuously to overcome any feeling as she now did to check her ill-timed mirth; but it was all in vain. Totally unused to restraint of any kind, she was quite unable to control her rebellious muscles, and after a long and violent struggle, finally broke out into one of the most vociferous paroxysms of laughter that was ever heard, just as her father, urged by his success up to the very enthusiasm of perfect acting, stretched out his hands right and left to receive the offered tracts, with a smile, which many besides Patty might have found it difficult to withstand.
The effect of this sudden explosion was startling, and might have been fatal, but for the admirable presence of mind of the major. No instant was lost by him in doubting what the sound might be, or what the cause of it, nor did it take him longer to decide how this alarming contretemps should be met.
The effect of this tremendous burst of merriment was not more startling to himself than to those who stood around, each meekly meditating how best to display before the eyes of so holy a gentleman their own particular and individual holiness. As the unexpected sound burst upon their ears, they one and all stood with staring eyes, raised hands, and open mouths, as if they had each been touched by an enchanter’s hand, and were rapidly passing from flesh and blood to stone.
“Oh my I what’s that?” cried Miss Vanderpuff, actually trembling from head to foot.
“Oh dear! oh dear!” groaned good Mrs. Tomkins; “it is right down awful to hear it; for as sure as the sun is in heaven, it is neither more nor less than somebody just laughing at us.”
“And if it is, Mrs. Tomkins,” observed the stately Mrs. General Pedmington, with a withering frown, “what is that to us? Are we still so unworthy of our election as to tremble before the idiot roar of a scoffer?”
“But, ma’am, ’tis the very lady he brought down?” screamed another sister, whose eye following the direction of the sound, caught sight of the unlucky Patty’s showy dress, peeping from behind the curtain of one of the little beds, in which she had endeavoured to hide herself.
“Possible?” cried another, looking at the major with an altered eye, and appearing to shudder, as if seized with an ague fit.
“Possible!” screamed a third.
“Possible!” echoed a fourth.
Alas’, poor Major! How stood he the while?
In reply to this but too intelligible demand, as to the possibility of his being in any way connected with this irreverent laughter, he looked around him with an eye expressive of such profound melancholy, that ere he had spoken a single word in his own defence, his cause was already half gained. But he did not do his tongue such injustice as to trust only to his eye, although that expressive organ was again called upon to aid him ere he spoke, for drawing a white handkerchief from his pocket, he pressed it to the upper part of his face, and by a slightly convulsive movement about the shoulders, might be supposed for several minutes to be weeping bitterly. No men in the world weep so much as the itinerant preachers of America; and this yielding to the weakness in their military disciple was a fine trait of acute observation. Having recovered himself, however, from this first paroxysm of emotion, he said —
“Pity me, my friends, pity the misery of an unhappy father, whose only child has made herself the wife of a Catholic, and then poisoned the dreadful shaft thus hurled at the very tenderest point of his heart, by giving way to ribald merriment, such as you have just listened to whenever she hears the voice of evangelical holiness from any one. Oh! what are the tortures of that inquisition which her new faith teaches her to venerate, compared to what she now inflicts upon me?”
It is perfectly impossible to conceive a more touching scene than that which followed this confidential avowal. The five sisters of the Needle Steeple congregation, with the distinguished Mrs. General Pedmington at their head, vied with each other in demonstrating the tender commiseration to which this disclosure had given birth. Sighs, groans, broken sentences, and copious tears, all bore witness to their amiable feelings.
“And your lady, sir?” said Mrs. General Pedmington, making a gulping effort to overcome her emotion, and speak distinctly “your lady — how does she conduct herself in this trying case?”
“Alas, madam! alas! I have no comfort there,” was the melancholy reply. “She is within hearing, ma’am, though she has crept into yonder bed, and affects to be sleeping, but however much I may suffer for it afterwards, I will not shrink from avowing to such ears as yours, the terrible fate that has fallen upon me. Alas! I am a lonely and most desolate man! having a wife, yet no wife! having a daughter, and yet being worse than childless! Dear, excellent ladies, I have now opened my whole heart to you, and the comfort of it is great, for I know you will pity me!”
Peculiarly affectionate and endearing as are the manners and feelings of such ladies as the sisters of the Needle Steeple congregation to all persons belonging to their sect, it is a fact, exceedingly obvious to an accurate observer, that no instances of worldly misfortune elicit so much ardent compassion and sympathy among them as matrimonial differences of opinion. This peculiar species of charity was particularly evident on the present occasion, though each of the pitying ladies, as she threw a heart-broken sort of glance on the unfortunate gentleman, felt determined to check all verbal expression of her feelings for the present, in consequence of the close proximity of his uncongenial wife.
This feeling, indeed, was so general among them that the only words uttered audibly, were from the lips of Mrs. General Pedmington, and merely consisted of this cautious phrase, “At a future opportunity, sir, I trust we may meet again.”
At this moment the stewardess entered, and the solitary lady passenger, who, as related above, had not joined in making the major free of the cabin, addressed her with some asperity, saying—” If you knew your business, mistress, I expect I sho
uld not be kept out of my berth, when I want to get into it, by having the ladies’ cabin turned into a chapel. If you won’t turn that male passenger out, I must go and find the captain, that’s all.”
It will readily be believed that the intrusion of Major Allen Barnaby into the ladies’ cabin, did not continue long after this hint. He just paused to give one circular glance of grateful acknowledgment to the fair friends he left there, and then sprang up the narrow stairs with the activity of fifteen.
When the passengers were disembarking on the following morning, the major took care to be on the gangway for the purpose of offering his hand to the ladies of the Needle Steeple congregation as they stepped across the plank; a civility which was graciously received by them all, and in the case of Mrs. General Pedmington, rewarded by a whispered renewal of the invitation to Mount Lebanon.
CHAPTER XLIII.
ON reaching the first good-looking hotel near the landing-place, the reverend Mr. O’Donagough entered it, and immediately ordered the best rooms they had, especially mentioning, with much solemnity, the necessity of a quiet and undisturbed sitting-room.
“In course, sir,” replied the landlady (for luckily for the major, it was a landlady and not a landlord, to whom he had addressed himself), “in course, sir, I know my duty to a gentleman such as you too well, not to take care of that.”
And sure enough the landlady did show them into a particular snag and quiet room, at the greatest possible distance from the noisy bar, and with so long a passage leading to it that it really seemed as if it had been built on purpose for seclusion. Having entered this room sedately, one by one, closed the door, and listened for a minute to the briskly retreating steps of the busy landlady, the major, his wife, and daughter, simultaneously threw themselves into three chairs, and forthwith indulged in such an unmitigated peal of laughter, as to make the startled and perplexed Tornorino t as if he thought they were all seized with a sudden fit of insanity. Nor did the observing this either induce or enable them to moderate their mirth, but perhaps had rather a contrary effect; and no wonder, for it is impossible to conceive a much more ludicrous contrast than that offered by the grave and weary-looking Don, and his laughter-shaken companions. At length, however, the convulsion passed, and then amidst the mutual compliments which were exchanged upon the perfect performance of the gentleman, the admirably discreet forbearance of his wife, together with a few gentle reproaches to Patty upon her dangerous want of selfcontrol, the mystery was explained, and Tornorino made to understand all that had happened.
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 376
