Part 35 (1/2)

The Mayor, observing her quietly, stole her hand into his own, feeling the pulse as if merely caressing the slender wrist. Then he began to describe his bailiff's cottage, with woodbine round the porch, the farm-yard, the bee-hives, the pretty duck-pond with an osier island, and the great China gander who had a pompous strut, which made him the droll est creature possible. And Sophy should go there in a day or two, and be as happy as one of the bees, but not so busy. Sophy listened very earnestly, very gravely, and then sliding her hand from the Mayor, caught hold of her grandfather's arm firmly, and said, ”And you, Grandy,--will you like it? won't it be dull for you, Grandy dear?”

”Why, my darling,” said Waife, ”I and Sir Isaac will go and take a stroll about the country for a few weeks, and--”

SOPHY (pa.s.sionately).--”I thought so; I thought he meant that. I tried not to believe it; go away,--you? and who's to take care of you? who'll understand you? I want care! I! I! No, no, it is you,--you who want care. I shall be well to-morrow,--quite well, don't fear. He shall not be sent away from me; he shall not, sir. Oh, Grandfather, Grandfather, how could you?” She flung herself on his breast, clinging there,--clinging as if infancy and age were but parts of the same whole.

”But,” said the Mayor, ”it is not as if you were going to school, my dear; you are going for a holiday. And your grandfather must leave you,--must travel about; 'tis his calling. If you fell ill and were with him, think how much you would be in his way. Do you know,” he added, smiling, ”I shall begin to fear that you are selfish.”

”Selfis.h.!.+” exclaimed Waife, angrily.

”Selfis.h.!.+” echoed Sophy, with a melancholy scorn that came from a sentiment so deep that mortal eye could scarce fathom it. ”Oh, no, sir!

can you say it is for his good, not for what he supposes mine that you want us to part? The pretty cottage, and all for me; and what for him?--tramp, tramp along the hot dusty roads. Do you see that he is lame? Oh, Sir, I know him; you don't. Selfis.h.!.+ he would have no merry ways that make you laugh without me; would you, Grandy dear? Go away, you are a naughty man,--go, or I shall hate you as much as that dreadful Mr. Rugge.”

”Rugge,--who is he?” said the Mayor, curiously, catching at any clew.

”Hush, my darling!--hus.h.!.+” said Waife, fondling her on his breast.

”Hus.h.!.+ What is to be done, sir?”

Hartopp made a sly sign to him to say no more before Sophy, and then replied, addressing himself to her, ”What is to be done? Nothing shall be done, my dear child, that you dislike. I don't wish to part you two.

Don't hate me; lie down again; that's a dear. There, I have smoothed your pillow for you. Oh, here's your pretty doll again.” Sophy s.n.a.t.c.hed at the doll petulantly, and made what the French call a moue at the good man as she suffered her grandfather to replace her on the sofa.

”She has a strong temper of her own,” muttered the Mayor; ”so has Anna Maria a strong temper!”

Now, if I were anyway master of my own pen, and could write as I pleased, without being hurried along helter-skelter by the tyrannical exactions of that ”young Rapid” in buskins and chiton called ”THE HISTORIC MUSE,” I would break off this chapter, open my window, rest my eyes on the green lawn without, and indulge in a rhapsodical digression upon that beautifier of the moral life which is called ”Good Temper.”

Ha! the Historic Muse is dozing. By her leave!--Softly.

CHAPTER XXI.

Being an essay on temper in general, and a hazardous experiment on the reader's in particular.

There, the window is open! how instinctively the eye rests upon the green! How the calm colour lures and soothes it! But is there to the green only a single hue? See how infinite the variety of its tints! What sombre gravity in yon cedar, yon motionless pine-tree! What lively but unvarying laugh in yon glossy laurels! Do those tints charm us like the play in the young leaves of the lilac,--lighter here, darker there, as the breeze (and so slight the breeze!) stirs them into checker,--into ripple? Oh, sweet green, to the world what sweet temper is to man's life! Who would reduce into one dye all thy lovely varieties? who exclude the dark steadfast verdure that lives on through the winter day; or the mutinous caprice of the gentler, younger tint that came fresh through the tears of April, and will shadow with sportive tremor the blooms of luxuriant June?

Happy the man on whose marriage-hearth temper smiles kind from the eyes of woman! ”No deity present,” saith the heathen proverb, ”where absent Prudence;” no joy long a guest where Peace is not a dweller,--peace, so like Faith that they may be taken for each other, and poets have clad them with the same veil. But in childhood, in early youth, expect not the changeless green of the cedar. Wouldst thou distinguish fine temper from spiritless dulness, from cold simulation,--ask less what the temper than what the disposition.

Is the nature sweet and trustful; is it free from the morbid self-love which calls itself ”sensitive feeling” and frets at imaginary offences; is the tendency to be grateful for kindness, yet take kindness meekly, and accept as a benefit what the vain call a due? From dispositions thus blessed, sweet temper will come forth to gladden thee, spontaneous and free. Quick with some, with some slow, word and look emerge out of the heart. Be thy first question, ”Is the heart itself generous and tender?”

If it be so, self-control comes with deepening affection. Call not that a good heart which, hastening to sting if a fibre be ruffled, cries, ”I am no hypocrite.” Accept that excuse, and revenge becomes virtue. But where the heart, if it give the offence, pines till it win back the pardon; if offended itself, bounds forth to forgive, ever longing to soothe, ever grieved if it wound; then be sure that its n.o.bleness will need but few trials of pain in each outbreak to refine and chastise its expression. Fear not then; be but n.o.ble thyself, thou art safe!

Yet what in childhood is often called, rebukingly, ”temper” is but the cordial and puissant vitality which contains all the elements that make temper the sweetest at last. Who amongst us, how wise soever, can construe a child's heart? who conjecture all the springs that secretly vibrate within, to a touch on the surface of feeling? Each child, but especially the girl-child, would task the whole lore of a sage deep as Shakspeare to distinguish those subtle emotions which we grown folks have outlived.

”She has a strong temper,” said the Mayor, when Soppy s.n.a.t.c.hed the doll from his hand a second time, and pouted at him, spoiled child, looking so divinely cross, so petulantly pretty! And how on earth could the Mayor know what a.s.sociations with that stupid doll made her think it profaned by the touch of a stranger? Was it to her eyes as to his,--mere waxwork and frippery; or a symbol of holy remembrances, of gleams into a fairer world, of ”devotion to something afar from the sphere of her sorrow?” Was not the evidence of ”strong temper” the very sign of affectionate depth of heart? Poor little Sophy! Hide it again,--safe out of sight, close, inscrutable, unguessed, as childhood's first treasures of sentiment ever are!

CHAPTER XXII.

The object of civilization being always to settle people one way or the other, the Mayor of Gatesboro' entertains a statesmanlike ambition to settle Gentleman Waife; no doubt a wise conception, and in accordance with the genius of the Nation. Every session of Parliament England is employed in settling folks, whether at home or at the Antipodes, who ignorantly object to be settled in her way; in short, ”I'll settle them,” has become a vulgar idiom, tantamount to a threat of uttermost extermination or smash; therefore the Mayor of Gatesboro' harbouring that benignant idea with reference to ”Gentleman Waife,” all kindly readers will exclaim, ”Dii meliora!

What will he do with it?”

The doll once more safe behind the pillow, Sophy's face gradually softened; she bent forward, touched the Mayor's hand timidly, and looked at him with pleading, penitent eyes, still wet with tears,--eyes that said, though the lips were silent, ”I'll not hate you. I was ungrateful and peevish; may I beg pardon?”