CHAPTER VI.
"It is never the same two hours together in this country," said my Uncle
Roland, as, after dinner, or rather after dessert, we joined my mother
in the drawing-room.
Indeed, a cold, drizzling rain had come on within the last two hours,
and though it was July, it was as chilly as if it had been October. My
mother whispered to me, and I went out; in ten minutes more, the logs
(for we live in a wooded country) blazed merrily in the grate. Why
could not my mother have rung the bell and ordered the servant to light
a fire? My dear reader, Captain Roland was poor, and he made a capital
virtue of economy!
The two brothers drew their chairs near to the hearth, my father at the
left, my uncle at the right; and I and my mother sat down to "Fox and
Geese."
Coffee came in,--one cup for the Captain, for the rest of the party
avoided that exciting beverage. And on that cup was a picture of--His
Grace the Duke of Wellington!
During our visit to the Roman camp my mother had borrowed Mr. Squills's
chaise and driven over to our market-town, for the express purpose of
greeting the Captain's eyes with the face of his old chief.
My uncle changed color, rose, lifted my mother's hand to his lips, and
sat himself down again in silence.
"I have heard," said the Captain after a pause, "that the Marquis of
Hastings, who is every inch a soldier and a gentleman,--and that is
saying not a little, for he measures seventyfive inches from the crown
to the sole,--when he received Louis XVIII. (then an exile) at
Donnington, fitted up his apartments exactly like those his Majesty had
occupied at the Tuileries. It was a kingly attention (my Lord Hastings,
you know, is sprung from the Plantagenets),--a kingly attention to a
king. It cost some money and made some noise. A woman can show the
same royal delicacy of heart in this bit of porcelain, and so quietly
that we men all think it a matter of course, brother Austin."
"You are such a worshipper of women, Roland, that it is melancholy to
see you single. You must marry again!"
My uncle first smiled, then frowned, and lastly sighed somewhat heavily.
"Your time will pass slowly in your old tower, poor brother," continued
my father, "with only your little girl for a companion."
"And the past!" said my uncle; "the past, that mighty world--"
"Do you still read your old books of chivalry,--Froissart and the
Chronicles, Palmerin of England, and Amadis of Gaul?"
"Why," said my uncle, reddening, "I have tried to improve myself with
studies a little more substantial. And," he added with a sly smile,
"there will be your great book for many a long winter to come."
"Um!" said my father, bashfully.
"Do you know," quoth my uncle, "that Dame Primmins is a very intelligent
woman,--full of fancy, and a capital story-teller?"
"Is not she, uncle?" cried I, leaving my fox in the corner. "Oh, if you
could hear her tell the tale of King Arthur and the Enchanted Lake, or
the Grim White Woman!"
"I have already heard her tell both," said my uncle.
"The deuce you have, brother! My dear, we must look to this. These
captains are dangerous gentlemen in an orderly household. Pray, where
could you have had the opportunity of such private communications with
Mrs. Primmins?"
"Once," said my uncle, readily, "when I went into her room, while she
mended my stock; and once--" He stopped short, and looked down.
"Once when? Out with it."
"When she was warming my bed," said my uncle, in a half-whisper.
"Dear!" said my mother, innocently, "that's how the sheets came by that
bad hole in the middle. I thought it was the warming-pan."
"I am quite shocked!" faltered my uncle.
"You well may be," said my father. "A woman who has been heretofore
above all suspicion! But come," he said, seeing that my uncle looked
sad, and was no doubt casting up the probable price of twice six yards
of holland, "but come, you were always a famous rhapsodist or tale-
teller yourself. Come, Roland, let us have some story of your own,--
something which your experience has left strong in your impressions."
"Let us first have the candles," said my mother.
The candles were brought, the curtains let down; we all drew our chairs
to the hearth. But in the interval my uncle had sunk into a gloomy
revery; and when we called upon him to begin, he seemed to shake off
with effort some recollections of pain.
"You ask me," he said, "to tell you some tale which my own experience
has left deeply marked in my impressions,--I will tell you one, apart
from my own life, but which has often haunted me. It is sad and
strange, ma'am."
"Ma'am, brother?" said my mother, reproachfully, letting her small hand
drop upon that which, large and sunburnt, the Captain waved towards her
as he spoke.
"Austin, you have married an angel!" said my uncle; and he was, I
believe, the only brother-in-law who ever made so hazardous an
assertion.
