R. D. Blackmore

“ My Aunt Parslow would take it as worse than high treason, that I should have stolen even such a dog; and how could I call it a good turn now?
“No dog would do you a bad turn, Kit,” she continued quite serenely; “at any rate no well-bred dog; they are as good as a woman, and infinitely better than any man, in judging human character. Now listen to what I have to say. I am not very sharp, for I live out of the world; and everybody owns that it gets much worse, from year to year, and from day to day. But I don’t care twopence for that, my dear, because nothing I can do will alter it. ”

“ If anything exciting came to pass at Sunbury, these odd people shrugged their shoulders, and talked about Bow Street, and Newgate, and the like; as if they belonged to Middlesex, and we to London. However, there can be no doubt which is the finer village.
I was much dissatisfied with myself, when I came to think of it, for allowing as I did this boatman’s story so to dwell upon my mind, that even the fair invalid in the stern lost many little due attentions. But happily she fell fast asleep, being sweetly lulled by the soft fine air, and the dreamy melody of waters. ”

“ PRINCE’S MANSION. When any man has once got into a racing state of mind, it is not fair to his bodily health to keep him in a wheatfield. Sam Henderson had been expected, by his bride and her female relatives, to walk about in country places, and sit on stiles, and admire the moon; like a young man from Whitechapel coming to feel his way to be a teacher. Sam had borne it pretty well, as a thing not likely to come twice, till he found it too much to come once. For he was not of my quiet nature; and still less could it be supposed that his Sally was like my Kitty. ”

“ AUNT PARSLOW. It is a bad thing for any man to be always beating his own bounds, and treading the track of his own grounds, and pursuing the twist of his own affairs—though they be even love affairs—as a dog spins round to catch his own tail. Under the hammer of incessant thought, and in the hot pincers of perpetual yearning, I was getting as flat as a horseshoe twice removed, when Sam Henderson gave a boy twopence to slip into our grounds, when my uncle’s back was turned, and put into my hand an envelope addressed to “Samuel Henderson, Esquire, The Paddocks, Halliford, Middlesex.” ”

“ Tender pictures arose before me of my angelic Kitty, starved, and tortured, and snubbed, and trampled, and (worst of all perhaps to a female body) shabbily, and grotesquely dressed. Such a woman as my uncle had described was enough to drive the largest-minded man to fury, and to grind the sweetest of her own sex, into fragments of misery and despair. The one crumb of comfort I could pick up, was that such cruelty must make my darling pine all the more for tender love, and long perpetually for some refuge, however humble it might be. ”

“ And it can be cured even now, dear Kit; but only as we cure the grief of death. I need not tell you to be a man; for I see that you have been one all along. After what you have told me, I understand your behaviour thoroughly. Before that, I was angry with you, and a little ashamed of you, to tell the truth, for moping here in this way. I thought, ‘Why the deuce doesn’t he go up and shake the truth out of that old rogue Hotchpot, or that bigger villain, Downy Bulwrag?’ But now I see that you could only stay at home, and trust to time to comfort you. ”

“ We might lead a gayer and noisier life, if that were to our liking; but we have seen enough of the world to know how nice it is, at a distance. Whatever the greatest people do I can read to Kitty in the evening; and she smiles or sighs in the proper places, without neglecting our own affairs. The puff of the passing world comes to us, like that of a train in the valley; or even as the whiff of a smoker in the lane comes over our wall with a delicate waft, albeit his tobacco is not first-rate. ”

“ If anything can rouse a lover’s indignation—and there are too many things that do so—such a calm assumption of his levity and ferocity is the first to set it boiling. “What are you thinking of?” I asked, without even adding, “Aunt Parslow.”
“I am pleased to see you in that state of mind,” she continued; when gratitude alone preserved me, without even a half-glance at her twenty thousand pounds, from the murderous speech that was on my tongue. “But you are very young, Kit. You will come to know better, when you have had enough of this sweet Kitty. Enough very soon becomes too much. ”

“ UNCLE CORNY. My name is Christopher Orchardson, of Sunbury in Middlesex; and I have passed through a bitter trouble, which I will try to describe somehow, both for my wife’s sake and my own, as well as to set us straight again in the opinion of our neighbours, which I have always valued highly, though sometimes unable to show it. It has not been in my power always to do the thing that was wisest, and whenever this is brought up against me, I can make no answer, only to beg those who love blame to look at themselves, which will make their eyes grow kinder, before they begin to be turned on me. ”

“ And upon my soul, Downy, if you had had such luck as I have, you would never place any more faith in it. Here, my dear fellow, have a Don Pintolado; there’s not such another weed to be got in London. And here’s a rare drop of old brandy, such as perhaps you never tasted. It’s as old as the hills, and as soft as oil. You must never put a drop of water with it. It stands me in two hundred and forty shillings a dozen, and I have never let any one see it but myself. What do you think of that now? Roll it on your tongue. The best liquor you ever nosed is not a patch upon it. ”

“ There must have been a deal of ground soon overcome between them; for they were not out of Uncle Corny’s gate till Sunbury clock struck three, and they knocked against the gate of Bulwrag Park, when the twilight still hung in the sky. And this had been done against a bitter east wind, with a low scud of snow flying into the teeth, and scurfing the darkening road with gray.
Here it was needful to reflect a little; for to think against the drift of air is worthless, for anything weaker than a six-wheeled engine. ”

“ Tony Tonks glanced every now and then with great curiosity at my uncle, and at this pocket which was hanging with its weight under the arm of a curved Windsor chair; as a fisherman likes to see his bag hang down, but only once in his lifetime has that pleasure.
But though Tony Tonks might go (more readily than the fish who won’t come at all) into that pocket, Nature had provided him with compensation for his want of magnitude. There never lived a very small man yet, who was not in his own opinion big. ”

“ A bushel may hold a peck more or less, according to the last jump made upon it. The basket-makers are by no means rogues, because the contents can make no difference to them. They turn out strong ware, at a very high price, so many inches in width, and so many in depth, according to tradition. Then they pat it, and pitch it down, and paint the name upon it; and their business ends, except to get their money. And of this they never fail; for the grower, as a rule, grows honesty as his chief, and often only crop. But after that basket’s virgin fill, how many meretricious uses does it undergo! ”

“ Nevertheless, for all of that, I believe that truth and equity are vindicated before we die, if only we live long enough. And if not, let us be content. We are fitter for another world, than those who have destroyed our life in this.”
I saw that my uncle had been overdone, brave, and strong-hearted, and stout as he was. People who complain, can support that habit; and a habit it becomes, never touching them inside. But he was of a hardy and courageous fibre; yet now he leant over his long pipe-stem, and his pipe had gone out, like the vapours of the past. ”

“ You young folk have so little sense, that you make it a point of honour never to be surprised by anything. If anybody had told me, without my knowing it already, that a man of great intellect, like Professor Fairthorn, would make such a fool of himself, and then submit to have no life of his own, I should have said it was a crazy lie. But there is the truth, my boy, not to be got over; and far worse than at first sight appears. A man who robs himself may be forgiven; but not a man who robs his children. ”

“ Fortune has continually been against us; but we have borne ourselves bravely, and won universal esteem, and even affection. I never praise myself; but when my time is over, the same thing will always be said of me.”
He spoke with such firm conviction that I was impressed with his words, and began to feel sure that report must have wronged him; until I thought of Kitty, who was no harsh judge of character.
“Hear, hear!” cried Sam; “you have done it well, Pots. After that, you can scarcely do less than invite us to drink your good health in a bottle of champagne.” ”

“ BAD COUNSEL. There are very few things that have the power to please us both in heart and mind, even when they have the will to do it, which is very seldom. Great events in our lives flash by without a word, and scarcely seem to give us time to chuckle, or to sob, till afterwards. But the little turns of time are more indulgent, and pass us with a sauntering foot, more often dull than lightsome.
For the moment, I was glad to find that my Uncle Cornelius, in his plain way, had taken a liking to my love. ”

“ Though you are not a fool, Kit; not half so much a fool as some who think they are mighty clever. What is it you want me to notice, my boy?”
“Why, I want you to notice particularly how Sally behaves to her husband. To hear him talk, one would suppose that he had got a perfect jewel—a model of a wife that worships him, and would crawl on her knees to please him. In fact, you would think she was fifty times the wonder that my Kitty was. But from what I know of Sally Chalker, I don’t believe a word of it.” ”

“ All this came into my mind, like a chill, when I had to trace her dear steps, away from me, away from me.
Let seventy times seven wise men say that no man with a grain of wisdom could have a spark of faith in women, because they never know their own mind—little as there is of it to know—I still abode in my own faith, and let them quote old saws against the sturdy holdfast of true love. I felt as sure of my Kitty’s heart, as I did of my own, and more so ”

“ May you never have a worse, if you ever catches any! And high time in life, ma’am, for you, Miss Jenny Marker, or Mrs. whichever you may be, and nobody in Sunbury knows the bottom of it, to be thinking a little now of your soul, ma’am, and less of your body, and the other things that perish. You draw in your cloak, ma’am, or it isn’t a cloak, nothing so suitable and sensible as that, just as if my poor goods wasn’t good enough to touch it! ”

“ The moon was gliding calmly on her southern road, and being in her humble summer state, she could scarcely top the big pear-tree which stood before my window. The room was full of light and shade, in bars, in patches, and in triangles, with no strong contrast in and out, but fused, like silver-wire netting, or water parted by the weir-posts, and rejoining under them. And there, in this faint flow of light and wavering ebb of shadow, I saw my Kitty, sitting calmly, and gazing at me steadfastly. ”

“ Downy was terrified, and ran for brandy, as she began to tear her hair, and clutch at the carpet, with shrieks growing weaker and more gurgling. And as he ran back, his sister Euphrasia met him, and snatched the bottle from his hand.
“You have done it,” cried Frizzy; “I knew you would. One of these days she’ll kill herself. You go away. You’re not wanted here. She wouldn’t take it from your hand, to save her life. I knew it must come. Get away, get away. Don’t let her eyes hit upon you, when she rolls them; or she will go off worse than ever. She knows everything, when she is insensible.” ”

“ Every man of us, even Uncle Corny, to whom every basket was grist [75] for the mill, felt heartily glad when streaky sunset faded softly into dusk, when flat leaf looked as round as fruit, and apples knocked our heads instead of gliding into the ready hand.
“Now mind one thing,” said my uncle with a yawn, when after a supper of liver and bacon knowingly fried by Mrs. Tabby, his pipe was between his teeth and all his other needs were toward; “if I go on with my tale to-night, I am likely enough to leave out something which may be the gist of it. ”

“ Kit Orchardson, you are a very pleasant fellow; considering how little you know of the world, I never thought there was so much in you. Why, if you could get over your shyness, Kit, you would be fit for very good society. But it is a mistake on the right side, my boy. I would much rather see a young chap like that, than one of your bumptious clodhoppers. I suppose I am the only man in Sunbury who ever goes into high society. And I take good care that it never spoils me. There is not a Lord on the turf that won’t shake hands with me, when he thinks I can put him up to anything. ”

“ TRUE LOVE. If any one had told me, so lately as last week, that Sam and myself would be sworn allies upon matters of the deepest interest, within fifty years of such a prophecy, I should have considered him as great a liar as the greatest statesman of the present period prove themselves daily out of their own mouths. Although I had not then the benefit of knowing how the most righteous of mankind deceive us, I knew well enough that the world is full of rogues, for no man can visit Covent Garden twice without having that conviction forced upon him. ”

“ There is no power but the will of God, that can keep asunder a man and woman who have given their lives to each other. All the craft, and falsehood, and violence of the world melt away like a mist, if they stand firm and faithful, and abide their time. But it must hold good on both sides alike. Both must disdain every word that comes from lying lips, from the lips of all, whether true or false, except one another. Remember, that is the rule, my lad, if rogues and scoundrels, male or female, come between you and the one you love. ”

“ Downy, with his usual self-esteem—which stands like a dummy at every loop-hole, when the garrison of self-respect is gone—gazed at the grower with a placid acceptance of rustic admiration. Little did he dream that another creak of his boots would have brought the crack of a big whip round his loins; for my uncle was a hasty man sometimes, and could prove it his duty to be so. And the heavy half-somnolent look of Downy—as if he were gaping with his eyes almost—was enough to put a quick busy man in a rage, even if he had no bone to pick with the man who was making a dog of him. ”

“ Now, this was not exactly to my liking. What right had she to call my Aunt Parslow hers? If I ever met any one free from petty jealousy, I believe it is the one I see while shaving. But ever since Sam Henderson came in at my aunt’s door, I, who had been getting on so well till then, seemed to be no better than a nobody. He had made himself the hero of the hour, and played first fiddle, and forced his way into her best graces, by working on her vanity, and social yearnings, and family pride, till I quite expected that he would declare himself to be a Parslow, and entitled to the silver teapot. ”

“ They want me to marry a man I detest—an old man, and a bad one!”
“My dear, I have promised you, and you know that you can rely on my promises, that you shall not even be allowed to marry a man of doubtful character. I have not been able, my darling Kitty, to do everything I should have liked for you; but one thing is certain—if inquiries prove that this gentleman—I forget his name—is a man of bad life and unkind nature, you shall have nothing to do with him. You know how little I am able now to go into what is called ‘Society,’ and most of my friends are men of my own tastes. ”

“ Those nobler beings who oust their British nature with foreign luxury, and learn to make belief of joy in the sour grape or the stringent still, are apt to forget, as perverts do, the solidity of the ancient creed. If a good or evil genius had stood by Sir Cumberleigh Hotchpot, or even Downy Bulwrag, and whispered, “Have a firkin there of treble X, or Indian Pale,” there might be now no chance for Bill to tell the things he had to tell.
When Tompkins, with his cart half full of Sallies piled like flower-pots, pulled up again at the wayside inn, he found it dark and lonely. ”

“ But beside her appearance, what one thing was there to lead a sane man to marry her? And a man who had lost a sweet-tempered wife, a beautiful, loving, and modest woman, as like your Kitty as two peas! Sometimes I feel sorry for him, when I think of his former luck; and sometimes I am glad that he is served out, for making such a horrible fool of himself. Nearly any other man would have hung himself, for the lady has gone from bad to worse, and is now a thorough termagant; but this man endures her as if she were his fate. ”

“ All the prime of my life must pass in sorrow, empty, mysterious, lonely sorrow. Perhaps when I grew old and could care for no one, having no one to care for me, when it mattered very little how my life was to finish, the [398] matter might be cleared up, all too late. Even my uncle Corny’s trouble, heavy, incurable, and life-long as it was, seemed light in comparison with mine; because all its history was manifest, and all suspense was over. How much longer must this misery drag on? If my Kitty were not dead, she must have come back long ago. ”

“ You have quicker wits than we have, ma’am; I ask you again, is there anything you can think of? Has her father any friends who would take her in?”
“Not one, to my knowledge,” answered Mrs. Wilcox, after counting on her finger-tips some names that she had heard of; “that dreadful creature have contrived to make every lady in the land afraid of her. And the poor Professor only knows the learned men, and the learneder they are the less they cares for one another. ’Tis the learning that is at the foot of all this trouble. You must see it so yourself, sir, when you come to think about it.” ”