They bowed, and shook hands, however, and bowed again,
and each was the other’s ‘servant;’
and being seated, they talked de generalibus;
for the good parson would not come like an executioner
and take his prisoner by the throat, but altogether
in the spirit of the shepherd, content to walk a long
way about, and wait till he came up with the truant,
and entreating him kindly, not dragging or beating
him back to the flock, but leading and carrying by
turns, and so awaiting his opportunity. But Devereux
was in one of his moods. He thought the doctor
no friend to his suit, and was bitter, and formal,
and violent.
OF A CERTAIN TEMPEST THAT AROSE AND SHOOK THE CAPTAIN’S
SPOONS AND TEA-CUPS; AND HOW THE WIND SUDDENLY WENT
DOWN.
‘I’m very glad, Sir, to have a few quiet
minutes with you,’ said the doctor, making then
a little pause; and Devereux thought he was going to
re-open the matter of his suit. ’For I’ve
had no answer to my last letter, and I want to know
all you can tell me of that most promising young man,
Daniel Loftus, and his most curious works.’
‘Dan Loftus is dead and—’ (I’m
sorry to say he added something else); ‘and
his works have followed him, Sir,’ said the strange
captain, savagely; for he could not conceive what
business the doctor had to think about him,
when Captain Devereux’s concerns were properly
to be discussed. So though he had reason to believe
he was quite well, and in Malaga with his ‘honourable’
and sickly cousin, he killed him off-hand, and disposed
summarily of his works.
There was an absolute silence of some seconds after
this scandalous explosion; and Devereux said—’In
truth, Sir, I don’t know. They hold him
capable of taking charge of my wise cousin—hang
him!—so I dare say he can take care of
himself; and I don’t see what the plague ill’s
to happen him.’
The doctor’s honest eyes opened, and his face
flushed a little. But reading makes a full man,
not a quick one; and so while he was fashioning his
answer, the iron cooled. Indeed he never spoke
in anger. When on sudden provocation he carried
his head higher and flushed a little, they supposed
he was angry; but if he was, this was all he showed
of the old Adam, and he held his peace.
So now the doctor looked down upon the table-cloth,
for Devereux’s breakfast china and silver were
still upon the table, and he marshalled some crumbs
he found there, sadly, with his finger, in a row first,
and then in a circle, and then, goodness knows how;
and he sighed profoundly over his work.
Devereux was in his mood. He was proud—he
had no notion of apologising. But looking another
way, and with his head rather high, he hoped Miss
Lilias was better.
Well, well, the spring was coming; and Parson Walsingham
knew the spring restored little Lily. ’She’s
like a bird—she’s like a flower, and
the winter is nearly past,’ (and the beautiful
words of the ‘Song of Songs,’ which little
Lily so loved to read, mingled like a reverie in his
discourse, and he said), ’the flowers will soon
appear in the earth, the time of the singing birds
will come, and the voice of the turtle be heard in
our land.’
