Part 46 (1/2)
The boy obeyed, saying, as he drew near, ”What's your pleasure, sir?”
”Fix your ladder against this post, d'ye hear? and mount--steady, mind,--and take the sign off the hooks. When you have got it loose, you may let it drop. If it breaks, it's no matter,--it is of no farther value.”
”Take down master's sign, your honour?” said Jem, opening his mouth and eyes to their greatest dimensions, but not approaching an inch nearer to the sign-post.
”Do you dispute my orders, you little ruffian?” cried the holy vicar, his eyes flas.h.i.+ng, and his cane raised in a very threatening att.i.tude.
”You be the parson of the parish, I know,” said the boy, looking steadily in his face; ”and they do say you be something else besides, now; but I don't see that's a reason for my lugging master's sign down.”
At this moment the feelings of the man overcame those of the saint, and Mr. Cartwright seizing upon the ladder, succeeded in disengaging it from the boy's hands, and himself placing it against the post, had already got one foot upon it, when Mrs. Freeman stepped back, and taking a quiet but firm hold of his arm, said, ”It is a trespa.s.s and a damage you are committing, sir, and I warn you to desist; and I wish with all my heart that there was no worser trespa.s.s and damage upon your conscience--or at least that there was still as good time to stop it. But, married or not to the lady, we won't have nothing to do with your arms, Mr. Cartwright, nor your legs, neither, if you please, sir; so don't be after climbing that fas.h.i.+on to disturb our property, for it don't look clerical nohow.”
Mr. Cartwright raised his voice much beyond its usual pitch, to answer; and at this moment Sally and the traveller, moved by a very natural feeling of curiosity, joined the group.
”Why, what's the gentleman after?” said the wayfaring man, deliberately taking out a pair of huge near-sighted spectacles to examine into the mystery. ”I should take un to be a parson by his cloth; only I never did hear of a reverend climbing a ladder, save and except the famous Dr.
Dodd, as I've read of in the Newgate Calendar.”
This harangue, short as it was, saved the Mowbray Arms from farther molestation for the present; for the vicar withdrew his foot. But the glance with which he greeted the speaker was very nearly awful. Dorothy Freeman, however, turned on her heel, nothing heeding it: her guest and daughter followed her into the house; Jem quietly took up his ladder and proceeded on his business; and the Vicar of Wrexhill, with feelings which the hope of future vengeance alone enabled him to endure with decent philosophy, was fain to turn on his heel also and walk off.
END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.
VOLUME THE THIRD.
CHAPTER I.
MR. AND MRS. CARTWRIGHT'S LETTER.
The very elegant cab, with its beautiful horse and accoutrements, led round to the door of the Vicarage as his own--the agreeable vivacity, as he always thought it, of his remarkably clever son--the mult.i.tude of low bows and lower curtsies which greeted him as he drove along--and above all, perhaps, the merry peal from the church tower, which had been ordered by himself to ring him into Mowbray Park, produced altogether so favourable an effect upon the nerves of the vicar, that when he stopped at the portico of his mansion, his spirits and his temper appeared altogether to have recovered the shock they had received at the foot of the sign-post.
The family party which met at dinner consisted of Mr. and Mrs.
Cartwright, Miss Cartwright, Mr. Jacob Cartwright, and poor Charles Mowbray and his sister f.a.n.n.y.
Mowbray thought the genial hour of dinner might probably be the most favourable for mentioning the invitation of Sir Gilbert and Lady Harrington to his sister and Miss Torrington; an idea which probably occurred to him in consequence of the remarkably well pleased and complaisant air visible on his stepfather's countenance as he took his place at the bottom of the table. Poor Charles! he made this observation, and he determined to profit by it; though it was not without a pang that he saw himself thus pushed from the stool that nature and fortune seemed to have a.s.signed to him.
”I am glad,” thought he, ”that the proud Rosalind, who advised me to lay my fortune at the feet of no one, is not here to witness the moment at which I take my place at my father's board, Lord of my presence and no land beside!”
But his young spirit soon o'er mastered the sensation which seemed threatening to choke him, when Mr. Cartwright said in the most obliging voice in the world, ”Charles, let me give you some soup.”
This over, he said with the easiest accent he could a.s.sume, and addressing his mother, ”I am the bearer, ma'am, of a message from Lady Harrington. She hopes that you will spare her the society of Miss Torrington and Helen for a short time.”
Mrs. Cartwright looked at her husband to ascertain his sentiments, before she ventured to have any of her own.
”It is very considerate of the old lady,” said the vicar, with a soft smile, of which his daughter only knew the full value. ”I dare say she thought we should be a good deal engaged just at first.... Chivers!
don't you see Mr. Jacob Cartwright is waiting for sauce?... I think, my love, we shall make no objection to the arrangement: however, we will talk together on the subject before we decide.”
As this amiable speech will not be found to accord exactly with his subsequent conduct, it may be well to remark that the servants were waiting at table, who doubtless would report his answer, and speculate on the temper of it.