Part 24 (2/2)

”'Do not wonder,' he replied; 'it is because I hate a petticoat enc.u.mbrance as much as I love warm feet. Look there,' (offering the stocking to my inspection:) 'is it not well done?'

”I did not touch it, but sneeringly said, 'Excellent! I wonder you do not apprentice yourself to a tailor.'

”He looked at me with an air of ridiculous simplicity, and said, 'How p.r.o.ne the woman is to _wonder_! You call the work excellent, and yet _wonder_ that I do not make myself a slave to improve my skill! Did you learn needlework from seven years' squatting on a tailor's board? Had you come to me, I would have taught you in a day.'

”'I was taught at school.'

”'And paid your instructor?'

”'To-be-sure.'

”''Twas liberty and money thrown away. Send your sister, if you have one, to me, and I will teach her without either rod or wages. Will you?'

”'You have an old and a violent antipathy, I believe, to any thing like a school.'

”'True. It was early and violent. Had not you?'

”'No. I went to school with pleasure; for I thought to read and write were accomplishments of some value.'

”'Indeed? Then I misunderstood you just now. I thought you said that, had you the strength of a man, you should prefer the plough and the book to the needle. Whence, supposing you a female, I inferred that you had a woman's love for the needle and a fool's hatred of books.'

”My father calling me from without, I now made a motion to go. 'Stay,'

continued he, with great earnestness, throwing aside his knitting-apparatus, and beginning in great haste to pull off his stockings. 'Draw these stockings over your shoes. They will save your feet from the snow while walking to your horse.'

”Half angry, and half laughing, I declined the offer. He had drawn them off, however, and, holding them in his hand, 'Be persuaded,' said he; 'only lift your feet, and I will slip them on in a trice.'

”Finding me positive in my refusal, he dropped the stockings; and, without more ado, caught me up in his arms, rushed out of the room, and, running barefoot through the snow, set me fairly on my horse. All was done in a moment, and before I had time to reflect on his intentions. He then seized my hand, and, kissing it with great fervour, exclaimed, 'A thousand thanks to you for not accepting my stockings. You have thereby saved yourself and me the time and toil of drawing on and drawing off.

Since you have taught me to wonder, let me practise the lesson in wondering at your folly, in wearing worsted shoes and silk stockings at a season like this. Take my counsel, and turn your silk to worsted and your worsted to leather. Then may you hope for warm feet and dry. What!

Leave the gate without a blessing on your counsellor?'

”I spurred my horse into a gallop, glad to escape from so strange a being. I could give you many instances of behaviour equally singular, and which betrayed a mixture of shrewdness and folly, of kindness and impudence, which justified, perhaps, the common notion that his intellects were unsound. Nothing was more remarkable than his impenetrability to ridicule and censure. You might revile him for hours, and he would listen to you with invincible composure. To awaken anger or shame in him was impossible. He would answer, but in such a way as to show him totally unaware of your true meaning. He would afterwards talk to you with all the smiling affability and freedom of an old friend.

Every one despised him for his idleness and folly, no less conspicuous in his words than his actions; but no one feared him, and few were angry with him, till after the detection of his commerce with _Betty_, and his inhuman treatment of his father.”

”Have you good reasons for supposing him to have been illicitly connected with that girl?”

”Yes. Such as cannot be discredited. It would not be proper for me to state these proofs. Nay, he never denied it. When reminded, on one occasion, of the inference which every impartial person would draw from appearances, he acknowledged, with his usual placid effrontery, that the inference was unavoidable. He even mentioned other concurring and contemporary incidents, which had eluded the observation of his censurer, and which added still more force to the conclusion. He was studious to palliate the vices of this woman, as long as he was her only paramour; but, after her marriage with his father, the tone was changed.

He confessed that she was tidy, notable, industrious; but, then, she was a prost.i.tute. When charged with being instrumental in making her such, and when his companions dwelt upon the depravity of reviling her for vices which she owed to him, 'True,' he would say, 'there is depravity and folly in the conduct you describe. Make me out, if you please, to be a villain. What then? I was talking, not of myself, but of Betty. Still this woman is a prost.i.tute. If it were I that made her such, with more confidence may I make the charge. But think not that I blame Betty. Place me in her situation, and I should have acted just so.

I should have formed just such notions of my interest, and pursued it by the same means. Still, say I, I would fain have a different woman for my father's wife, and the mistress of his family.'”

CHAPTER XXVI.

This conversation was interrupted by a messenger from my wife, who desired my return immediately. I had some hopes of meeting with Mervyn, some days having now elapsed since his parting from us, and not being conscious of any extraordinary motives for delay. It was Wortley, however, and not Mervyn, to whom I was called.

My friend came to share with me his suspicions and inquietudes respecting Welbeck and Mervyn. An accident had newly happened which had awakened these suspicions afresh. He desired a patient audience while he explained them to me. These were his words:--

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