Imagens da página
PDF
ePub

thin so the serenity was again disturbed. Then Tom's vanity, curiously tickled by the astute Sniggers, led him to believe that he possessed a power over other things than his shop and his serving girl, and that his help was needed for his country. So vanity made Tom a member of the G. D. A., and sent him to his habitation more glorious than he quitted it thus the chief blow was struck! After Mr. Brancrust's solemn denunciation of Chartism, he had flown right in the face of it. His fors wearing the society of the disaffected was made the condition upon which his dearest wishes were to rest. He had spat upon the condition, and become one of the disaffected himself: his vanity and his vow had dragged his foot and set it, as it were, upon the gentle hopes of Ada and his own soul !

Here was a fix! And how was Tom to get out of it? To suppose that Mr. Brancrust and Ada did not know of his visit to the "Cat and Trumpet," of his initiation, and its consequences, was to suppose an impossibility. He knew that the atmosphere of Lower Fleecington was not at all favourable to secrets; they never could get their rest somehow, they must wander and wander from house to house, till they became no longer secrets, but matters of history.

How could a man, with such troubles upon his mind, dispense out the necessaries of life to his customers with an impartial hand? You might as well expect a Bishop, sitting in the Lords, to attend to such common matters as the spiritual wants of his diocese, whilst the affairs of state are hanging round him!

From what we have said, or rather preached, regarding the influence of a man's vanity over him, it may be reasonably inferred that the magic sentence of Mr. Sniggers', "we can't do without you," kept poking its obtrusive head into his memory the whole of the day; and would not be shown the door.

But Love-who pays not the least respect to the rights of propriety or property, the law of nations, the "nine points" of the charter, and so forth-thought proper, eventually, to make Tom forget all about the importance of his presence in the Fleecington council, before the last rays of the sun had left that venerable town; and instead of leading him to the "Cat and Trumpet," led him (not so much against the grain either) towards the old Mill by the river-side, and to a council of a far more agreeable kind.

Tom raised the knocker, and waited for about the space of half-aminute, expecting to hear a tripping footstep run along the passage to open the door for him. What was his surprise when, after the lapse of a door was gently opened by the neat handmaiden,

few seconds more, the

who was fit only for such a mistress as Ada.

Tom had seen something very like the back of Ada's head at the window, strange she had not run out to him!

"Is Miss Brancrust at home?" he asked, with a misgiving voice. "Yes-no-that is, I'll see," replied the rosy-cheeked damsel, in a hesitating manner; and as Tom stepped into the passage (dignified by the name of hall), and laid his hand on the knob of the parlour door, to satisfy himself, the girl stopped him with her hand; and opening the door of a room opposite, called the best parlour, and devoted to strangers and rich customers, she said, as Tom entered it,

"Yes, sir, Miss Ada is in; but you can't see her yet, sir-she's got a gentleman with her!"

CHAPTER IV.

Who the Unknown is-Another Instalment of Sentiment-A Father's Vigil.

"Got a gentleman with her-can't see her got a gentleman with her!" exclaimed Tom, in a doubting tone; and he entered the best parlour after the manner of a man under the influence of mesmerism.

This room had that chilly air about it which the best parlours of the middle classes generally have, and it struck, as it were, to Tom's heart. Not a thing was out of its place; the bell-pulls were put to rest in a couple of brown-holland bibs, the chairs and the sofa were graced with brown-holland pinafores, the gorgeous pattern of the carpet was screened from desecration by a brown-holland crumb-cloth, and two or three portraits on the walls looked out in a misty manner from behind yellow-gauze veils.

There was a musty smell, and a species of uncomfortable preciseness about the chamber, which gave one the idea of the spirit of neatness having entered in and died there, and that it had been shut up ever since, out of respect to its memory.

All this had its effect upon Tom. There was none of the hearty welcome, and the genial glow, which seemed to break out upon him from all the four walls of the other parlour, on the instant that he entered it. He sat down on the edge of one of the chairs, as if he had never been in the house before, and held his hat uncomfortably between his knees.

"I've done it now," thought he: "this is the first time these five years that I've been refused entrance into that room, whether there were strangers in it or not-a gentleman with her, and I'm not to see

her! Ah, I can't blame her-I'm a fool-a confounded fool-that's what I am!"

Tom had not long come to this highly edifying and comfortable conclusion, before he heard a noise in the hall, as of one female voice engaged in scolding another; and in a second after the door was swung open, and in bounced Ada :

"Dear me, Tom," said that young lady, "how very very stupid of the girl! how very ridiculous to be sure: just as if I am not always at liberty to you, Tom: how very absurd-but come along, come in, TomI'm so happy!"

And the excitable little damsel caught hold of Tom by both his hands, and commenced pulling him towards the door.

"But the gentleman!" said Tom, looking very much in doubt whether to smile or frown, "the-gentleman-"

"Is my uncle-my uncle Joseph, from India, Tom: you often heard me talk about him-come along!"

room.

Tom settled his doubt by smiling, and followed Ada into the next

From the easy-chair, which was wheeled right in front of the fire, rose a tall gentleman, with a gamboge complexion, very round shoulders, very dark sparkling eyes-whose proper vocation seemed to be that of peering continually along the barrels and through the "sights" of rifles and tiger-guns-hair dark and short cropped, and meagre whiskers, with which the tropics seemed to have sported unfeelingly. He rose with a hearty air, half sailor-like, half military, with a dash of the backwoodsman in it, and shook Tom's hand cordially:

"So you're the lad I joke Ada about in my letters, are you?" said he, good-humouredly. "Well, well, sit down, and let's know you—I've heard of you often enough!" and, with another sly glance at his niece, the Indian resumed his chair. Tom and Ada followed his example; and in a few moments the spark lit by the old traveller kindled into a blaze, and to look in upon the three, one would have thought they had lived together from the times of their infancy upwards, and could never be tired of each other.

What queer old fellows these Indian gentleman are-an especially favourite class of men with our present novel writers too, and no wonder. An Englishman, eccentric at home, is doubly eccentric when transplanted into any other latitude.

But let us slip from Anglo-Indians in general to our Anglo-Indian in particular. Mr. Joseph Scampton had run away, no one knew where, a great number of years ago, from his counting-house and ledgers; had turned up in India, when least expected to turn up at all; his uprising

being made sufficiently evident by the showers of letters, and the rolls of Indian matting, and the strings of glaring beads, and the tusks and painted screens, with which the state-parlour at the Mill had long swarmed, to the mild astonishment and reverence of the Lower Fleecington people. He had, however, on no occasion mentioned his probable return to England; and, therefore, the surprise of little Ada, on hearing that a stranger was waiting to see her, and then, when she entered the room, her indignation that the said stranger should seize her by the waist and kiss her a score of times before taking the trouble to tell her that he was her uncle, may be easily imagined, but never described! We will, however, do Ada the justice to say, that as soon as the announcement was made and she became convinced that she saw before her that dear uncle whom she had so often longed to see and speak to, and whose kind letters had so often brought gentle tears into her eyes-then she could hardly make enough of him; and she returned his affectionate greeting with interest, and sat on the knees of the wanderer, and played with his thin withered locks, and looked into his face with the tears of love again in her eyes, till the man's keen gaze was dimmed with the joy of an affection to which he was so long unused.

Ada had, in the first impulse of the moment, determined to send for her father home again; but having experienced the luxury of a surprise herself, she rightly determined to startle Mr. Brancrust with the apparition of his old companion.

What a jolly evening those three passed: the Indian was so full of anecdotes and illustrations, so crammed with strange wild things to English ears; he had been tiger hunting, and had been torn; he had been elk hunting, and had been gored; he had been to Ceylon, and had dodged under the legs and jumped over the tusks of "rogue" elephants, and outrun lady elephants, and had whizzed round trees with buffaloes after him; and had been lulled to sleep by the croaking of myriad reptiles; and had been tossed, and rolled, and trampled on, and stung; and had been frizzled and fevered; and yet there he was, calmly sitting and spinning his yarns, and talking about "Syces" and "Ayahs," and Hookabadars," and of " Shichars," and of grand "Tomashas" (or tea and turn-outs), to which he had been invited; and of the delights of "Tiffinism," with the muslin curtains, and the deliciously cool verandahs; and the iced drinks, devised by the ingenuity of thirsty Europeans; occasionally throwing in a touch of romance, as he pulled one cheroot after another from a cigar-case of delicately worked matting, the love pledge of some fair Indian with an unpronouncable name, but the memory of whom seemed to throw a shade over the old wanderer's forehead, and a film over his eyes. Then he would jump off from this to

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

another topic, such as the necessity of wearing three clean shirts in a day in the Punjaub, or the luxury of a musquito banquet upon your own person; or, jumping again, he would endeavour to engage Tom's attention upon the subject of our Indian Government, abuse the officials, and make an onslaught upon the "Company; " or, failing in that, he would tell to Ada some old Indian legend, of the loves and miseries of "Adeh Dycar and Sutzle Kama, and their fourteen bond slaves, in the Bamboo Hut in the midst of the High Mimosas," or something to the same effect; whilst Tom and Ada, sitting together, let the hours creep on unwittingly, and thought that never had a night passed so pleasantly and so speedily.

At about half-past eleven, the old Indian rose to go to his inn, in spite of Ada's request that he would, at least, stay and see her father.

"No," said he "I'm later than my usual hour, and I must stop no longer. I'll come to-morrow, and startle the old man. Good night, dear," and Ada gave him a kiss, which, although Tom saw it, did not make him feel the least bit jealous. He shook Tom's hand cordially. "Don't tell the old man I'm come," said he, with a last sly look at Ada. The door closed, and our hero and heroine were left alone.

"Left alone." It is often a very unpleasant thing to be left alone. It is exceedingly disagreeable to be left alone with a man to whom you are in debt! It is not over delightful to see everyone leaving the room, and to feel that you are going to be "left alone" with a man whom you have wronged! It is embarrassing to find out, suddenly, that you are alone with the object of your affections; especially when you have made up your mind to ask her that night to become Mrs.-Jones-Robinson —Villikins, or whatever your respected patronymic may happen to be! It is annoying to be left alone with a great man when you yourself happen to be of the smallest! But, perhaps, it is the worst of all to be left alone with the girl to whom you are engaged, and with whose wishes you are conscious of having totally neglected to comply.

This was the position of Tom; although, during the stay of the uncle, Tom had never been gayer- Ada never more obliging, yet when that individual had departed, a sudden chill, like a wet blanket, fell upon the pair. Tom sat nervously silent, and looking into the fire. Ada, conscious of his embarrassment, evidently did not like to begin; at last, having worked herself into a small pet, by patting the hearth-rug with her feet, and pulling the crochet work about, she started off with a sudden bounce:

"So, Tom, you can go to that odious 'Cat and Trumpet' when you can't come here!"

This touched the right spring. Tom got up from his seat, and

« AnteriorContinuar »