Part 45 (1/2)
”Of Har--no--of him that you know about?” again demanded the Dominie.
”That I know about?” replied Lucy, totally at a loss to comprehend his meaning.
”Yes, the stranger, you know, that came last evening in the post vehicle--he who shot young Hazlewood--ha, ha, ho!” burst forth the Dominie, with a laugh that sounded like neighing.
”Indeed, Mr. Sampson,” said his pupil, ”you have chosen a strange subject for mirth--I think nothing about the man, only I hope the outrage was accidental, and that we need not fear a repet.i.tion of it.”
”Accidental! ho, ho, ha!” again whinnied Sampson.
”Really, Mr. Sampson,” said Lucy, somewhat piqued,” you are unusually gay this morning.”
”Yes, of a surety I am I ha, ha, ho! face-ti-ous--ho, ho, ha!”
”So unusually facetious, my dear sir,” pursued the young lady, ”that I would wish rather to know the meaning of your mirth, than to be amused with its effects only.”
”You shall know it, Miss Lucy,” replied poor Abel Do you remember your brother?”
”Good G.o.d! how can you ask me?--no one knows better than you, he was lost the very day I was born.”
”Very true, very true,” answered the Dominie, saddening at the recollection; ”I was strangely oblivious--ay, ay--too true. But you remember your worthy father?”
”How should you doubt it, Mr. Sampson? it is not so many weeks since--”
”True, true--ay, too true,” replied the Dominie, his Houyhnhnm laugh sinking into a hysterical giggle,--”I will be facetious no more under these remembrances--but look at that young man!”
Bertram at this instant entered the room. ”Yes, look at him well--he is your father's living image; and as G.o.d has deprived you of your dear parents--O my children, love one another!”
”It is indeed my father's face and form,” said Lucy, turning very pale; Bertram ran to support her--the Dominie to fetch water to throw upon her face (which in his haste he took from the boiling tea-urn)--when fortunately her colour returning rapidly, saved her from the application of this ill-judged remedy. ”I conjure you yet to tell me, Mr. Sampson,” she said, in an interrupted, solemn voice, is this my brother?”
”It is--it is!--Miss Lucy, it is little Harry Bertram, as sure as G.o.d's sun is in that heaven!”
”And this is my sister?” said Bertram, giving way to all that family affection, which had so long slumbered in his bosom for want of an object to expand itself upon.
”lt is!--it is Miss Lucy Bertram,” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Sampson, ”whom by my poor aid you will find perfect in the tongues of France, and Italy, and even of Spain--in reading and writing her vernacular tongue, and in arithmetic and bookkeeping by double and single entry--I say nothing of her talents of shaping, and hemming, and governing a household, which, to give every one their due, she acquired not from me, but from the housekeeper--nor do I take merit for her performance upon stringed instruments, whereunto the instructions of an honourable young lady of virtue and modesty, and very facetious withal--Miss Julia Mannering--hath not meanly contributed--Suum cuique tribuilo.”
”You, then,” said Bertram to his sister, ”are all that remains to me!--Last night, but more fully this morning, Colonel Mannering gave me an account of our family misfortunes, though without saying I should find my sister here.”
”That,” said Lucy, ”he left to this gentleman to tell you, one of the kindest and most faithful of friends, who soothed my father's long sickness, witnessed his dying moments, and amid the heaviest clouds of fortune would not desert his orphan.”
”G.o.d bless him for it!” said Bertram, shaking the Dominie's hand;”
he deserves the love with which I have always regarded even that dim and imperfect shadow of his memory which my childhood retained.”
”And G.o.d bless you both, my dear children,” said Sampson; ”if it had not been for your sake, I would have been contented (had Heaven's pleasure so been) to lay my head upon the turf beside my patron.”
”But, I trust,” said Bertram, ”I am encouraged to hope we shall all see better days. All our wrongs shall be redressed, since Heaven has sent me means and friends to a.s.sert my right.”
”Friends indeed!” echoed the Dominie, ”and sent, as you truly say, by Him, to whom I early taught you to look up as the source of all that is good. There is the great Colonel Mannering from the Eastern Indies, a man of war from his birth up-wards, but who is not the less a man of great erudition, considering his imperfect opportunities; and there is, moreover, the great advocate Mr.
Pleydell, who is also a man of great erudition, but who descendeth to trifles unbeseeming thereof; and there is Mr. Andrew Dinmont, whom I do not understand to have possession of much erudition, but who, like the patriarchs of old, is cunning in that which belongeth to flocks and herds--Lastly, there is even I myself, whose opportunities of collecting erudition, as they have been greater than those of the aforesaid valuable persons, have not, if it becomes me to speak, been pretermitted by me, in so far as my poor faculties have enabled me to profit by them. Of a surety, little Harry, we must speedily resume our studies. I will begin from the foundation--yes, I will reform your education upward from the true knowledge of English grammar, even to that of the Hebrew or Chaldaic tongue.”
The reader may observe, that, upon this occasion, Sampson was infinitely more profuse of words than he had hitherto exhibited himself. The reason was, that in recovering his pupil his mind went instantly back to their original connection, and he had in his confusion of ideas, the strongest desire in the world to resume spelling lessons and half-text with young Bertram. This was the more ridiculous, as towards Lucy he a.s.sumed no sn.o.b powers of tuition. But she had grown up under his eye, and had been gradually emanc.i.p.ated from his government by increase in years and knowledge, and a latent sense of his own inferior tact in manners, whereas his first ideas went to take up Harry pretty nearly where he had left him. From the same feelings of reviving authority, he indulged himself in what was to him a profusion of language; and as people seldom speak more than usual without exposing themselves, he gave those whom he addressed plainly to understand, that while he deferred implicitly to the opinions and commands, if they chose to impose them, of almost every one whom he met with, it was under an internal conviction, that in the article of Erudition, as he usually p.r.o.nounced the word, he was infinitely superior to them all put together. At present, however, this intimation fell upon heedless cars, for the brother and sister were too deeply engaged in asking and receiving intelligence concerning their former fortunes to attend much to the worthy Dominie.