living among us a creator of poetic romance immeasurably
more inventive than they,—appealing to
our credulity in portents the most monstrous, with
a charm of style the most conversationally familiar,—still
I cannot conceive that even that unrivalled romance-writer
can so bewitch our understandings as to make us believe
that, if Miss Mordaunt’s cat dislikes to wet
her feet, it is probably because in the prehistoric
age her ancestors lived in the dry country of Egypt;
or that when some lofty orator, a Pitt or a Gladstone,
rebuts with a polished smile which reveals his canine
teeth the rude assault of an opponent, he betrays
his descent from a ‘semi-human progenitor’
who was accustomed to snap at his enemy. Surely,
surely there must be some books still extant written
by philosophers before the birth of Adam, in which
there is authority, even though but in mythic fable,
for such poetic inventions. Surely, surely some
early chroniclers must depose that they saw, saw with
their own eyes, the great gorillas who scratched off
their hairy coverings to please the eyes of the young
ladies of their species, and that they noted the gradual
metamorphosis of one animal into another. For,
if you tell me that this illustrious romance-writer
is but a cautious man of science, and that we must
accept his inventions according to the sober laws
of evidence and fact, there is not the most incredible
ghost story which does not better satisfy the common
sense of a sceptic. However, if you have no such
books, lend me the most unphilosophical you possess,—on
magic, for instance,—the philosopher’s
stone”—
“I have some of them,” said the vicar,
laughing; “you shall choose for yourself.”
“If you are going homeward, let me accompany
you part of the way: I don’t yet know where
the church and the vicarage are, and I ought to know
before I come in the evening.”
Kenelm and the vicar walked side by side, very sociably,
across the bridge and on the side of the rivulet on
which stood Mrs. Cameron’s cottage. As
they skirted the garden pale at the rear of the cottage,
Kenelm suddenly stopped in the middle of some sentence
which had interested Mr. Emlyn, and as suddenly arrested
his steps on the turf that bordered the lane.
A little before him stood an old peasant woman, with
whom Lily, on the opposite side of the garden pale,
was conversing. Mr. Emlyn did not at first see
what Kenelm saw; turning round rather to gaze on his
companion, surprised by his abrupt halt and silence.
The girl put a small basket into the old woman’s
hand, who then dropped a low curtsy, and uttered low
a “God bless you.” Low though it
was, Kenelm overheard it, and said abstractedly to
Mr. Emlyn, “Is there a greater link between
this life and the next than God’s blessing on
the young, breathed from the lips of the old?”
“AND how is your good man, Mrs. Haley?”
said the vicar, who had now reached the spot on which
the old woman stood,—with Lily’s fair
face still bended down to her,—while Kenelm
slowly followed him.
