Part 4 (1/2)
He went one step farther in his fun; upon which Van Diemen said, with a frown, ”If you please!”
Nothing could withstand that.
”Hang old Mart Tinman's wine!” Van Diemen burst out in the dead pause.
”My head's a bullet. I'm in a shocking bad temper. I can hardly see.
I'm bilious.”
Mr. Fellingham counselled his lying down for an hour, and he went grumbling, complaining of Mart Tinman's incredulity about the towering beauty of a place in Australia called Gippsland.
Annette confided to Mr. Fellingham, as soon as they were alone, the chivalrous nature of her father in his friends.h.i.+ps, and his indisposition to hear a satirical remark upon his old schoolmate, the moment he understood it to be satire.
Fellingham pleaded: ”The man's a perfect burlesque. He's as distinctly made to be laughed at as a mask in a pantomime.”
”Papa will not think so,” said Annette; ”and papa has been told that he is not to be laughed at as a man of business.”
”Do you prize him for that?”
”I am no judge. I am too happy to be in England to be a judge of anything.”
”You did not touch his wine!”
”You men attach so much importance to wine!”
”They do say that powders is a good thing after Mr. Tinman's wine,”
observed Mrs. Crickledon, who had come into the sitting-room to take away the breakfast things.
Mr. Fellingham gave a peal of laughter; but Mrs Crickledon bade him be hushed, for Mr. Van Diemen Smith had gone to lay down his poor aching head on his pillow. Annette ran upstairs to speak to her father about a doctor.
During her absence, Mr. Fellingham received the popular portrait of Mr.
Tinman from the lips of Mrs. Crickledon. He subsequently strolled to the carpenter's shop, and endeavoured to get a confirmation of it.
”My wife talks too much,” said Crickledon.
When questioned by a gentleman, however, he was naturally bound to answer to the extent of his knowledge.
”What a funny old country it is!” Mr. Fellingham said to Annette, on their walk to the beach.
She implored him not to laugh at anything English.
”I don't, I a.s.sure you,” said he. ”I love the country, too. But when one comes back from abroad, and plunges into their daily life, it's difficult to retain the real figure of the old country seen from outside, and one has to remember half a dozen great names to right oneself. And Englishmen are so funny! Your father comes here to see his old friend, and begins boasting of the Gippsland he has left behind. Tinman immediately brags of Helvellyn, and they fling mountains at one another till, on their first evening together, there's earthquake and rupture-- they were nearly at fisticuffs at one time.”
”Oh! surely no,” said Annette. ”I did not hear them. They were good friends when you came to the drawingroom. Perhaps the wine did affect poor papa, if it was bad wine. I wish men would never drink any. How much happier they would be.”
”But then there would cease to be social meetings in England. What should we do?”
”I know that is a sneer; and you were nearly as enthusiastic as I was on board the vessel,” Annette said, sadly.
”Quite true. I was. But see what quaint creatures we have about us!
Tinman practicing in his Court suit before the chiwal-gla.s.s! And that good fellow, the carpenter, Crickledon, who has lived with the sea fronting him all his life, and has never been in a boat, and he confesses he has only once gone inland, and has never seen an acorn!”
”I wish I could see one--of a real English oak,” said Annette.