From what you say of Mr. Bowles’s study of Man,
and his inborn talent for that scientific investigation,
I suppose that he is a professed Metaphysician, and
I should be glad of his candid opinion upon the Primary
Basis of Morals, a subject upon which I have for three
years meditated the consideration of a critical paper.
But having lately read a controversy thereon between
two eminent philosophers, in which each accuses the
other of not understanding him, I have resolved for
the present to leave the Basis in its unsettled condition.
You rather alarm me when you say you have had a narrow
escape from marriage. Should you, in order to
increase the experience you set out to acquire, decide
on trying the effect of a Mrs. Chillingly upon your
nervous system, it would be well to let me know a little
beforehand, so that I might prepare your mother’s
mind for that event. Such household trifles are
within her special province; and she would be much
put out if a Mrs. Chillingly dropped on her unawares.
This subject, however, is too serious to admit of
a jest even between two persons who understand, so
well as you and I do, the secret cipher by which each
other’s outward style of jest is to be gravely
interpreted into the irony which says one thing and
means another. My dear boy, you are very young;
you are wandering about in a very strange manner,
and may, no doubt, meet with many a pretty face by
the way, with which you may fancy that you fall in
love. You cannot think me a barbarous, tyrant
if I ask you to promise me, on your honour, that you
will not propose to any young lady before you come
first to me and submit the case to my examination
and approval. You know me too well to suppose
that I should unreasonably withhold my consent if
convinced that your happiness was at stake. But
while what a young man may fancy to be love is often
a trivial incident in his life, marriage is the greatest
event in it; if on one side it may involve his happiness,
on the other side it may insure his misery. Dearest,
best, and oddest of sons, give me the promise I ask,
and you will free my breast from a terribly anxious
thought which now sits on it like a nightmare.
Your recommendation of a basket-maker comes opportunely.
All such matters go through the bailiff’s hands,
and it was but the other day that Green was complaining
of the high prices of the man he employed for hampers
and game-baskets. Green shall write to your protege.
Keep me informed of your proceedings as much as your
anomalous character will permit; so that nothing may
diminish my confidence that the man who had the honour
to be christened Kenelm will not disgrace his name,
but acquire the distinction denied to a Peter.
Your affectionate father.
CHAPTER VII.
VILLAGERS lie abed on Sundays later than on workdays,
and no shutter was unclosed in a window of the rural
street through which Kenelm Chillingly and Tom Bowles
went, side by side, in the still soft air of the Sabbath
morn. Side by side they went on, crossing the
pastoral glebe-lands, where the kine still drowsily
reclined under the bowery shade of glinting chestnut
leaves; and diving thence into a narrow lane or by-road,
winding deep between lofty banks all tangled with
convolvulus and wild-rose and honeysuckle.
Copyrights
Kenelm Chillingly — Complete from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
