Part 21 (1/2)
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Why not propose to them yourselves? You seem to be all creditable young men.
_Harry Hedgerow._ I have proposed to Miss Dorothy, you know, and she would not have me; and the rest are afraid. We are all something to do with the land and the wood; farmers, and foresters, and nurserymen, and all that. And we have all opened our hearts to one another. They don't pretend to look above us; but it seems somehow as if they did, and couldn't help it They are so like young ladies. They daze us, like. Why, if they'd have us, they'd be all in reach of one another. Fancy what a family party there'd be at Christmas. We just want a good friend to put a good foot foremost for us; and if the young gentleman does marry, perhaps they may better themselves by doing likewise.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Six partners for six sisters 204-171]
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ And so you seven young friends have each a different favourite among the seven sisters?
_Harry Hedgerow._ Why, that's the beauty of it.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ The beauty of it? Perhaps it is. I suppose there is an agistor {1} among you?
1 An agistor was a forest officer who superintended the taking in of strange cattle to board and lodge, and accounted for the profit to the sovereign. I have read the word, but never heard it. I am inclined to think that in modern times the duty was carried on under another name, or merged in the duties of another office.
_Harry Hedgerow. (after looking at his companions who all shook their heads)_. I am afraid not. Ought there to be? We don't know what it means.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ I thought that among so many foresters there might be an agistor. But it is not indispensable. Well, if the young gentleman is going to be married, he will tell me of it. And when he does tell me, I will tell him of you. Have patience. It may all come right.
_Harry Hedgerow._ Thank ye, sir. Thank ye, sir, kindly.
Which being echoed in chorus by the other six, they took their departure, much marvelling what the reverend doctor could mean by an agistor.
'Upon my word,' said the doctor to himself, 'a very good-looking, respectable set of young men. I do not know what the others may have to say for themselves. They behaved like a Greek chorus. They left their share of the dialogue to the coryphaeus. He acquitted himself well, more like a Spartan than an Athenian, but none the worse for that. Brevity, in this case, is better than rhetoric. I really like that youth. How his imagination dwells on the family party at Christmas. When I first saw him, he was fancying how the presence of Miss Dorothy would gladden his father's heart at that season. Now he enlarges the circle, but it is still the same predominant idea. He has lost his mother. She must have been a good woman, and his early home must have been a happy one. The Christmas hearth would not be so uppermost in his thoughts if it had been otherwise. This speaks well for him and his. I myself think much of Christmas and all its a.s.sociations. I always dine at home on Christmas Day, and measure the steps of my children's heads on the wall, and see how much higher each of them has risen since the same time last year, in the scale of physical life. There are many poetical charms in the heraldings of Christmas. The halcyon builds its nest on the tranquil sea. ”The bird of dawning singeth all night long.” I have never verified either of these poetical facts. I am willing to take them for granted.
I like the idea of the Yule-log, the enormous block of wood carefully selected long before, and preserved where it would be thoroughly dry, which burned on the old-fas.h.i.+oned hearth. It would not suit the stoves of our modem saloons. We could not burn it in our kitchens, where a small fire in the midst of a mats of black iron, roasts, and bakes, and boils, and steams, and broils, and fries, by a complicated apparatus which, whatever may be its other virtues, leaves no s.p.a.ce for a Christmas fire. I like the festoons of holly on the walls and windows; the dance under the mistletoe; the gigantic sausage; the baron of beef; the vast globe of plum-pudding, the true image of the earth, flattened at the poles; the tapping of the old October; the inexhaustible bowl of punch; the life and joy of the old hall, when the squire and his household and his neighbourhood were as one. I like the idea of what has gone, and I can still enjoy the reality of what remains. I have no doubt Harry's father b.u.ms the Yule-log, and taps the old October. Perhaps, instead of the beef, he produces a fat pig roasted hole, like Eumaeus, the divine swineherd in the _Odyssey_. How Harry will burn the Yule-log if he can realise this day-dream of himself and his six friends with the seven sisters! I shall make myself acquainted with the position and characters of these young suitors. To be sure, it is not my business, and I ought to recollect the words of Cicero: ”Est enim difficilis cura rerum alienarum: quamquam Terentia.n.u.s ille Chremes humani nihil a se alienum putat.”{1} I hold with. Chremes too. I am not without hope, from some symptoms I have lately seen, that rumour, in the present case, is in a fair way of being right; and if, with the accordance of the young gentleman as key-note, these two heptachords should harmonise into a double octave, I do not see why I may not take my part as fundamental ba.s.s.'
1 It is a hard matter to take active concern in the affairs of others; although the Chremes of Terence thinks nothing human alien to himself.--De Officiis: i. 9.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE TWO QUADRILLES--POPE's...o...b..E--POETICAL TRUTH TO NATURE--CLEOPATRA
(Greek pa.s.sage) Alexis: Tarantini.
As men who leave their homes for public games, We leave our native element of darkness For life's brief light. And who has most of mirth, And wine, and love, may, like a satisfied guest, Return, contented, to the night he sprang from.
In the meantime Mr. Falconer, after staying somewhat longer than usual at home, had returned to the Grange. He found much the same party as he had left: but he observed, or imagined, that Lord Curryfin was much more than previously in favour with Miss Gryll; that she paid him more marked attention, and watched his conduct to Miss Niphet with something more than curiosity.
Amongst the winter evenings' amus.e.m.e.nts were two forms of quadrille: the old-fas.h.i.+oned game of cards, and the more recently fas.h.i.+onable dance. On these occasions it was of course a carpet-dance. Now, dancing had never been in Mr. Falconer's line, and though modern dancing, especially in quadrilles, is little more than walking, still in that 'little more'
there is ample room for grace and elegance of motion.
Herein Lord Curryfin outshone all the other young men in the circle. He endeavoured to be as indiscriminating as possible in inviting partners: but it was plain to curious observation, especially if a spice of jealousy mingled with the curiosity, that his favourite partner was Miss Niphet. When they occasionally danced a polka, the reverend doctor's mythological theory came out in full force. It seemed as if Nature had preordained that they should be inseparable, and the interior conviction of both, that so it ought to be, gave them an accordance of movement that seemed to emanate from the innermost mind. Sometimes, too, they danced the _Minuet de la Cour_.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Minuet de la Cour 009-177]
Having once done it, they had been often unanimously requested to repeat it. In this they had no compet.i.tors. Miss Gryll confined herself to quadrilles, and Mr. Falconer did not even propose to walk through one with her. When dancing brought into Miss Nipher/s cheeks the blush-rose bloom, which had more than once before so charmed Lord Curryfin, it required little penetration to see, through his external decorum, the pa.s.sionate admiration with which he regarded her. Mr. Falconer remarked it, and, looking round to Miss Gryll, thought he saw the trace of a tear in her eye. It was a questionable glistening: jealousy construed it into a tear. But why should it be there? Was her mind turning to Lord Curryfin? and the more readily because of a newly-perceived obstacle?
Had mortified vanity any share in it? No: this was beneath _Morgana._ Then why was it there? Was it anything like regret that, in respect of the young lord, she too had lost her opportunity? Was he himself blameless in the matter? He had been on the point of declaration, and she had been apparently on the point of acceptance: and instead of following up his advantage, he had been absent longer than usual. This was ill; but in the midst of the contending forces which severally acted on him, how could he make it well? So he sate still, tormenting himself.
In the meantime, Mr. Gryll had got up at a card-table, in the outer, which was the smaller drawing-room, a quadrille party of his own, consisting of himself, Miss Ilex, the Reverend Dr. Opimian, and _Mr.
MacBorrowdale._