The Disowned Part 21

"Not at all!" said Clarence, trying to smile.

"And you, my dear Findlater" (turning to the baronet), "you know that I wish you well; you know that I never flatter; I'm your real friend, so you must not be angry; but you really are not considered a Solomon."

"Mr. Callythorpe!" exclaimed the baronet in a rage (the best-hearted people can't always bear truth), "what do you mean?"

"You must not be angry, my good sir; you must not, really. I can't help telling you of your faults; for I am a true Briton, sir, a true Briton, and leave lying to slaves and Frenchmen."

"You are in an error," said Trollolop; "Frenchmen don't lie, at least not naturally, for in the human mind, as I before said, the Divine Author has implanted a principle of veracity which--"

"My dear sir," interrupted Callythorpe, very affectionately, "you remind me of what people say of you."

"Memory may be reduced to sensation, since it is only a weaker sensation," quoth Trollolop; "but proceed."

"You know, Trollolop," said Callythorpe, in a singularly endearing intonation of voice, "you know that I never flatter; flattery is unbecoming a true friend,--nay, more, it is unbecoming a native of our happy isles, and people do say of you that you know nothing whatsoever, no, not an iota, of all that nonsensical, worthless philosophy of which you are always talking. Lord St. George said the other day 'that you were very conceited.'--'No, not conceited,' replied Dr. ----, 'only ignorant;' so if I were you, Trollolop, I would cut metaphysics; you're not offended?"

"By no means," cried Trollolop, foaming at the mouth.

"For my part," said the good-hearted Sir Christopher, whose wrath had now subsided, rubbing his hands,--"for my part, I see no good in any of those things: I never read--never--and I don't see how I'm a bit the worse for it. A good man, Linden, in my opinion, only wants to do his duty, and that is very easily done."

"A good man; and what is good?" cried the metaphysician, triumphantly.

"Is it implanted within us? Hobbes, according to Reid, who is our last, and consequently best, philosopher, endeavours to demonstrate that there is no difference between right and wrong."

"I have no idea of what you mean," cried Sir Christopher.

"Idea!" exclaimed the pious philosopher. "Sir, give me leave to tell you that no solid proof has ever been advanced of the existence of ideas: they are a mere fiction and hypothesis. Nay, sir, 'hence arises that scepticism which disgraces our philosophy of the mind.'

Ideas!--Findlater, you are a sceptic and an idealist."

"I?" cried the affrighted baronet; "upon my honour I am no such thing.

Everybody knows that I am a Christian, and--"

"Ah!" interrupted Callythorpe, with a solemn look, "everybody knows that you are not one of those horrid persons,--those atrocious deists and atheists and sceptics, from whom the Church and freedom of old England have suffered such danger. I am a true Briton of the good old school; and I confess, Mr. Trollolop, that I do not like to hear any opinions but the right ones."

"Right ones being only those which Mr. Callythorpe professes," said Clarence.

"Exactly so!" rejoined Mr. Callythorpe.

"The human mind," commenced Mr. Trollolop, stirring the fire; when Clarence, who began to be somewhat tired of this conversation, rose.

"You will excuse me," said he, "but I am particularly engaged, and it is time to dress. Harrison will get you tea or whatever else you are inclined for."

"The human mind," renewed Trollolop, not heeding the interruption; and Clarence forthwith left the room.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

You blame Marcius for being proud.--Coriola.n.u.s. Here is another fellow, a marvellous pretty hand at fas.h.i.+oning a compliment.-The Tanner of Tyburn.

There was a brilliant ball at Lady T----'s, a personage who, every one knows, did in the year 17-- give the best b.a.l.l.s, and have the best-dressed people at them, in London. It was about half-past twelve, when Clarence, released from his three friends, arrived at the countess's. When he entered, the first thing which struck him was Lord Borodaile in close conversation with Lady Flora.

Clarence paused for a few moments, and then, sauntering towards them, caught Flora's eye,--coloured, and advanced. Now, if there was a haughty man in Europe, it was Lord Borodaile. He was not proud of his birth, nor fortune, but he was proud of himself; and, next to that pride, he was proud of being a gentleman. He had an exceeding horror of all common people; a Claverhouse sort of supreme contempt to "puddle blood;"

his lip seemed to wear scorn as a garment; a lofty and stern self-admiration, rather than self-love, sat upon his forehead as on a throne. He had, as it were, an awe of himself; his thoughts were so many mirrors of Viscount Borodaile dressed en dieu. His mind was a little Versailles, in which self sat like Louis XIV., and saw nothing but pictures of its self, sometimes as Jupiter and sometimes as Apollo. What marvel then, that Lord Borodaile was a very unpleasant companion? for every human being he had "something of contempt." His eye was always eloquent in disdaining; to the plebeian it said, "You are not a gentleman;" to the prince, "You are not Lord Borodaile."

Yet, with all this, he had his good points. He was brave as a lion; strictly honourable; and though very ignorant, and very self-sufficient, had that sort of dogged good sense which one very often finds in men of stern hearts, who, if they have many prejudices, have little feeling, to overcome.

Very stiffly and very haughtily did Lord Borodaile draw up, when Clarence approached and addressed Lady Flora; much more stiffly and much more haughtily did he return, though with old-fas.h.i.+oned precision of courtesy, Clarence's bow, when Lady Westborough introduced them to each other. Not that this hauteur was intended as a particular affront: it was only the agreeability of his lords.h.i.+p's general manner.

"Are you engaged?" said Clarence to Flora.

"I am, at present, to Lord Borodaile."

"After him, may I hope?"

Lady Flora nodded a.s.sent, and disappeared with Lord Borodaile.

His Royal Highness the Duke of ---- came up to Lady Westborough; and Clarence, with a smiling countenance and an absent heart, plunged into the crowd. There he met Lord Aspeden, in conversation with the Earl of Holdenworth, one of the administration.

"Ah, Linden," said the diplomatist, "let me introduce you to Lord Holdenworth,--a clever young man, my dear lord, and plays the flute beautifully." With this eulogium, Lord Aspeden glided away; and Lord Holdenworth, after some conversation with Linden, honoured him by an invitation to dinner the next day.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

'T is true his nature may with faults abound; But who will cavil when the heart is sound?--STEPHEN MONTAGUE.

Dum vitant stulti vitia, in contraria currant.-HORACE.

["The foolish while avoiding vice run into the opposite extremes."]

The next day Sir Christopher Findlater called on Clarence. "Let us lounge in the park," said he.

"With pleasure," replied Clarence; and into the park they lounged.

By the way they met a crowd, who were hurrying a man to prison. The good-hearted Sir Christopher stopped: "Who is that poor fellow?" said he.

"It is the celebrated" (in England all criminals are celebrated.

Thurtell was a hero, Thistlewood a patriot, and Fauntleroy was discovered to be exactly like Buonaparte!) "it is the celebrated robber, John Jefferies, who broke into Mrs. Wilson's house, and cut the throats of herself and her husband, wounded the maid-servant, and split the child's skull with the poker." Clarence pressed forward: "I have seen that man before," thought he. He looked again, and recognized the face of the robber who had escaped from Talbot's house on the eventful night which had made Clarence's fortune. It was a strongly-marked and rather handsome countenance, which would not be easily forgotten; and a single circ.u.mstance of excitement will stamp features on the memory as deeply as the commonplace intercourse of years.

"John Jefferies!" exclaimed the baronet; "let us come away."

"Linden," continued Sir Christopher, "that fellow was my servant once.

He robbed me to some considerable extent. I caught him. He appealed to my heart; and you know, my dear fellow, that was irresistible, so I let him off. Who could have thought he would have turned out so?" And the baronet proceeded to eulogize his own good-nature, by which it is just necessary to remark that one miscreant had been saved for a few years from transportation, in order to rob and murder ad libitum, and, having fulfilled the office of a common pest, to suffer on the gallows at last.

What a fine thing it is to have a good heart! Both our gentlemen now sank into a revery, from which they were awakened, at the entrance of the park, by a young man in rags who, with a piteous tone, supplicated charity. Clarence, who, to his honour be it spoken, spent an allotted and considerable part of his income in judicious and laborious benevolence, had read a little of political morals, then beginning to be understood, and walked on. The good-hearted baronet put his hand in his pocket, and gave the beggar half a guinea, by which a young, strong man, who had only just commenced the trade, was confirmed in his imposition for the rest of his life; and, instead of the useful support, became the pernicious inc.u.mbrance of society.

Sir Christopher had now recovered his spirits. "What's like a good action?" said he to Clarence, with a swelling breast.

The park was crowded to excess; our loungers were joined by Lord St.

George. His lords.h.i.+p was a stanch Tory. He could not endure Wilkes, liberty, or general education. He launched out against the enlightenment of domestics. [The ancestors of our present footmen, if we may believe Sir William Temple, seem to have been to the full as intellectual as their descendants. "I have had," observes the philosophic statesman, "several servants far gone in divinity, others in poetry; have known, in the families of some friends; a keeper deep in the Rosicrucian mysteries and a laundress firm in those of Epicurus."]