Sophy, reclined beside him, was gathering some pale scentless violets from a mound which the brambles had guarded from the sun. The dog had descended to the waters to quench his thirst, but still stood knee-deep in the shallow stream, and appeared lost in philosophical contemplation of a swarm of minnows, which his immersion had disturbed, but which now made itself again visible on the farther side of the glassy brook, undulating round and round a tiny rocklet which interrupted the glide of the waves, and caused them to break into a low melodious murmur. "For these and all thy mercies, O Lord, make us thankful," said the victim of ill-luck, in the tritest words of a pious custom. But never, perhaps, at aldermanic feasts was the grace more sincerely said.
And then he untied the bundle, which the dog, who had hitherto carried it by the way, had now carefully deposited at his side. "As I live," ejaculated Waife, "Mrs. Saunders is a woman in ten thousand. See, Sophy, not contented with the bread and cheese to which I bade her stint her beneficence, a whole chicken,—a little cake too for you, Sophy; she has not even forgotten the salt. Sophy, that woman deserves the handsomest token of our gratitude; and we will present her with a silver teapot the first moment we can afford it."
His spirits exhilarated by the unexpected good cheer, the Comedian gave way to his naturally blithe humour; and between every mouthful he rattled or rather drolled on, now infant-like, now sage-like. He cast out the rays of his liberal humour, careless where they fell,—on the child, on the dog, on the fishes that played beneath the wave, on the cricket that chirped amidst the grass; the woodpecker tapped the tree, and the cripple's merry voice answered it in bird-like mimicry. To this riot of genial babble there was a listener, of whom neither grandfather nor grandchild was aware. Concealed by thick brushwood a few paces farther on, a young angler, who might be five or six and twenty, had seated himself, just before the arrival of our vagrant to those banks and waters, for the purpose of changing an unsuccessful fly. At the sound of voices, perhaps suspecting an unlicensed rival, for that part of the stream was preserved,—he had suspended his task, and noiselessly put aside the clustering leaves to reconnoitre. The piety of Waife's simple grace seemed to surprise him pleasingly, for a sweet approving smile crossed his lips. He continued to look and to listen. He forgot the fly, and a trout sailed him by unheeded. But Sir Isaac, having probably satisfied his speculative mind as to the natural attributes of minnows, now slowly reascended the bank, and after a brief halt and a sniff, walked majestically towards the hidden observer, looked at him with great solemnity, and uttered an inquisitive bark,—a bark not hostile, not menacing; purely and dryly interrogative. Thus detected, the angler rose; and Waife, whose attention was directed that way by the bark, saw him, called to Sir Isaac, and said politely, "There is no harm in my dog, sir."
The young man muttered some inaudible reply, and, lifting up his rod as in sign of his occupation or excuse for his vicinity, came out from the intervening foliage, and stepped quietly to Waife's side. Sir Isaac followed him, sniffed again, seemed satisfied; and seating himself on his haunches, fixed his attention upon the remains of the chicken which lay defenceless on the grass. The new comer was evidently of the rank of gentleman; his figure was slim and graceful, his face pale, meditative, refined. He would have impressed you at once with the idea of what he really was,—an Oxford scholar; and you would perhaps have guessed him designed for the ministry of the Church, if not actually in orders.
CHAPTER VIII
Mr. Waife excites the admiration, and benignly pities the infirmity, of an Oxford scholar.
"You are str-str-strangers?" said the Oxonian, after a violent exertion to express himself, caused by an impediment in his speech.
WAIFE.—"Yes, sir, travellers. I trust we are not trespassing: this is not private ground, I think?"
OXONIAN.—"And if-f-f-f—it were, my f-f-father would not war-n-n you off-ff—f."
"Is it your father's ground, then? Sir, I beg you a thousand pardons."
The apology was made in the Comedian's grandest style: it imposed greatly on the young scholar. Waife might have been a duke in disguise; but I will do the angler the justice to say that such discovery of rank would have impressed him little more in the vagrant's favour. It had been that impromptu "grace"—that thanksgiving which the scholar felt was for something more than the carnal food—which had first commanded his respect and wakened his interest. Then that innocent careless talk—part uttered to dog and child, part soliloquized, part thrown out to the ears of the lively teeming Nature—had touched a somewhat kindred chord in the angler's soul; for he was somewhat of a poet and much of a soliloquist, and could confer with Nature, nor feel that impediment in speech which obstructed his intercourse with men. Having thus far indicated that oral defect in our new acquaintance, the reader will cheerfully excuse me for not enforcing it over much. Let it be among the things /subaudita/, as the sense of it gave to a gifted and aspiring nature, thwarted in the sublime career of Preacher, an exquisite mournful pain. And I no more like to raise a laugh at his infirmity behind his back, than I should before his pale, powerful, melancholy face; therefore I suppress the infirmity in giving the reply.
OXONIAN.—" On the other side the lane, where the garden slopes downward, is my father's house. This ground is his property certainly, but he puts it to its best use, in lending it to those who so piously acknowledge that Father from whom all good comes. Your child, I presume, sir?"
"My grandchild."
"She seems delicate: I hope you have not far to go?"
"Not very far, thank you, sir. But my little girl looks more delicate than she is. You are not tired, darling?"
"Oh, not at all!" There was no mistaking the looks of real love interchanged between the old man and the child; the scholar felt much interested and somewhat puzzled.
"Who and what could they be? so unlike foot wayfarers!" On the other hand, too, Waife took a liking to the courteous young man, and conceived a sincere pity for his physical affliction. But he did not for those reasons depart from the discreet caution he had prescribed to himself in seeking new fortunes and shunning old perils, so he turned the subject.
"You are an angler, sir? I suppose the trout in the stream run small?"
"Not very: a little higher up I have caught them at four pounds weight."
WAIFE.—"There goes a fine fish yonder,—see! balancing himself between those weeds."
OXONIAN.—"Poor fellow, let him be safe to-day. After all, it is a cruel sport, and I should break myself of it. But it is strange that whatever our love for Nature we always seek some excuse for trusting ourselves alone to her. A gun, a rod, a sketch-book, a geologist's hammer, an entomologist's net, a something."
WAIFE.—"Is it not because all our ideas would run wild if not concentrated on a definite pursuit? Fortune and Nature are earnest females, though popular beauties; and they do not look upon coquettish triflers in the light of genuine wooers."
The Oxonian, who, in venting his previous remark, had thought it likely he should be above his listener's comprehension, looked surprised. What pursuits, too, had this one-eyed philosopher?
"You have a definite pursuit, sir?"
"I—alas! when a man moralizes, it is a sign that he has known error: it is because I have been a trifler that I rail against triflers. And talking of that, time flies, and we must be off and away."
Sophy re-tied the bundle. Sir Isaac, on whom, meanwhile, she had bestowed the remains of the chicken, jumped up and described a circle.
"I wish you success in your pursuit, whatever it be," stuttered out the angler.
"And I no less heartily, sir, wish you success in yours."
"Mine! Success there is beyond my power."
"How, sir? Does it rest so much with others?"
"No, my failure is in myself. My career should be the Church, my pursuit the cure of souls, and—and—this pitiful infirmity! How can I speak the Divine Word—I—I—a