Part 13 (1/2)

Your most humble and most obliged, obedient servant,

W. W.

VANCE.--”Who never more may trouble you--trouble you! Where have they gone?”

COBBLER.--”Don't know; would you like to take a peep in the crystal--perhaps you've the gift, unbeknown?”

VANCE.--”Not I--bah! Come away, Lionel.”

”Did not Sophy even leave any message for me?” asked the boy, sorrowfully.

”To be sure she did; I forgot-no, not exactly a message, but this--I was to be sure to give it to you.” And out of his miscellaneous receptacle the Cobbler extracted a little book. Vance looked and laughed,--”The b.u.t.terflies' Ball and the Gra.s.shoppers' Feast.”

Lionel did not share the laugh. He plucked the book to himself, and read on the fly-leaf, in a child's irregular scrawl, blistered, too, with the unmistakable trace of fallen tears, these words:--

Do not Scorn it. I have nothing else I can think of which is All Mine. Miss Jane Burton gave it me for being Goode. Grandfather says you are too high for us, and that I shall not see you More; but I shall never forget how kind you were, never--never. Sophy.

Said the Cobbler, his awl upright in the hand which rested on his knee, ”What a plague did the 'Stronomers discover Herschel for? You see, sir,”

addressing Vance, ”things odd and strange all come along o' Herschel.”

”What!--Sir John?”

”No, the star he poked out. He's a awful star for females! hates 'em like poison! I suspect he's been worriting hisself into her nativity, for I got out from her the year, month, and day she was born, hour unbeknown, but, calkeiating by noon, Herschel was dead agin her in the Third and Ninth House,--Voyages, Travels, Letters, News, Church Matters, and such like. But it will all come right after he's transited. Her Jupiter must be good. But I only hope,” added the Cobbler, solemnly, ”that they won't go a-discovering any more stars. The world did a deal better without the new one, and they do talk of a Neptune--as bad as Saturn!”

”And this is the last of her!” said Lionel, sadly, putting the book into his breast-pocket. ”Heaven s.h.i.+eld her wherever she goes!”

VANCE.--”Don't you think Waife and the poor little girl will come back again?”

COBBLER.--”P'raps; I know he was looking hard into the county map at the stationer's over the way; that seems as if he did not mean to go very far. P'raps he may come back.”

VANCE.--”Did he take all his goods with him?”

COBBLER.--”Barrin' an old box,--nothing in it, I expect, but theatre rubbish,--play-books, paints, an old wig, and sick like. He has good clothes,--always had; and so has she, but they don't make more than a bundle.”

VANCE. ”But surely you must know what the old fellow's project is. He has got from me a great sum: what will he do with it?”

COBBLER.--”Just what has been a-bothering me. What will he do with it?

I cast a figure to know; could not make it out. Strange signs in Twelfth House. Enemies and Big Animals. Well, well, he's a marbellous man, and if he warn't a misbeliever in the crystal, I should say he was under Herschel; for you see, sir” (laying hold of Vance's b.u.t.ton, as he saw that gentleman turning to escape),--”you see Herschel, though he be a sinister chap eno', specially in affairs connected with t' other s.e.x, disposes the native to dive into the mysteries of natur'. I'm a Herschel man, out and outer; born in March, and--”

”As mad as its hares,” muttered Vance, wrenching his b.u.t.ton from the Cobbler's grasp, and impatiently striding off. But he did not effect his escape so easily, for, close at hand, just at the corner of the lane, a female group, headed by Merle's gaunt housekeeper, had been silently collecting from the moment the two friends had paused at the Cobbler's door. And this petticoated divan suddenly closing round the painter, one pulled him by the sleeve, another by the jacket, and a third, with a nose upon which somebody had sat in early infancy, whispered, ”Please, sir, take my picter fust.”

Vance stared aghast,--”Your picture, you drab!” Here another model of rustic charms, who might have furnished an ideal for the fat scullion in ”Tristram Shandy,” bobbing a courtesy put in her rival claim.

”Sir, if you don't objex to coming into the kitching after the family has gone to bed, I don't care if I lets you make a minnytur of me for two pounds.”

”Miniature of you, porpoise!”

”Polly, sir, not Porpus,--ax pardon. I shall clean myself, and I have a butyful new cap,--Honeytun, and--”