Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, No. 15, August, 1851. VariousЧитать онлайн книгу.
him, finds him in the church-choir, singing, with a surplice on.
"What!" cries ye Duke, as they walk home together, "my Lord Chancellor playing the parish clerk? Sure, you dishonor the King and his office."
"Nay," says father, smiling, "your grace must not deem that the King, your master and mine, will be offended at my honoring his Master."
Sure, 'tis pleasant to heare father taking ye upper hand of these great folks: and to have 'em coming and going, and waiting his pleasure, because he is ye man whom ye King delighteth to honor.
True, indeede, with Wolsey 'twas once ye same; but father neede not feare ye same ruin; because he hath Him for his friend, whom Wolsey said woulde not have forsaken him had he served Him as he served his earthly master. 'Twas a misproud priest; and there's the truth on't. And father is not misproud; and I don't believe we are; though proud of him we cannot fail to be.
And I know not why we may not be pleased with prosperitie, as well as patient under adversitie; as long as we say, "Thou, Lord, hast made our hill soe strong." 'Tis more difficult to bear with comelinesse, doubtlesse; and envious folks there will be; and we know alle things have an end, and everie sweet hath its sour, and everie fountain its fall; but … 'tis very pleasant for all that.
REMINISCENCES OF AN ATTORNEY
I am about to relate a rather curious piece of domestic history, some of the incidents of which, revealed at the time of their occurrence in contemporary law reports, may be in the remembrance of many readers. It took place in one of the midland counties, and at a place which I shall call Watley; the names of the chief actors who figured in it must also, to spare their modesty or their blushes, as the case may be, be changed; and should one of those persons, spite of these precautions, apprehend unpleasant recognition, he will be able to console himself with the reflection, that all I state beyond that which may be gathered from the records of the law courts will be generally ascribed to the fancy or invention of the writer. And it is as well, perhaps, that it should be so.
Caleb Jennings, a shoemender, cobbler, snob – using the last word in its genuine classical sense, and by no means according to the modern interpretation by which it is held to signify a genteel sneak or pretender – he was any thing but that – occupied, some twelve or thirteen years ago, a stall at Watley, which, according to the traditions of the place, had been hereditary in his family for several generations. He may also be said to have flourished there, after the manner of cobblers; for this, it must be remembered, was in the good old times, before the gutta-percha revolution had carried ruin and dismay into the stalls – those of cobblers – which in considerable numbers existed throughout the kingdom. Like all his fraternity whom I have ever fallen in with or heard of, Caleb was a sturdy Radical of the Major Cartwright and Henry Hunt school; and being withal industrious, tolerably skillful, not inordinately prone to the observance of Saint Mondays, possessed, moreover, of a neatly-furnished sleeping and eating apartment in the house of which the projecting first floor, supported on stone pillars, overshadowed his humble workplace, he vaunted himself to be as really rich as an estated squire, and far more independent.
There was some truth in this boast, as the case which procured us the honor of Mr. Jennings's acquaintance sufficiently proved. We were employed to bring an action against a wealthy gentleman of the vicinity of Watley for a brutal and unprovoked assault he had committed, when in a state of partial inebriety, upon a respectable London tradesman who had visited the place on business. On the day of trial our witnesses appeared to have become suddenly afflicted with an almost total loss of memory; and we were only saved from an adverse verdict by the plain, straightforward evidence of Caleb, upon whose sturdy nature the various arts which soften or neutralize hostile evidence had been tried in vain. Mr. Flint, who personally superintended the case, took quite a liking to the man; and it thus happened that we were called upon some time afterward to aid the said Caleb in extricating himself from the extraordinary and perplexing difficulty in which he suddenly and unwittingly found himself involved.
The projecting first floor of the house beneath which the humble work-shop of Caleb Jennings modestly disclosed itself, had been occupied for many years by an ailing and somewhat aged gentleman of the name of Lisle. This Mr. Ambrose Lisle was a native of Watley, and had been a prosperous merchant of the city of London. Since his return, after about twenty years' absence, he had shut himself up in almost total seclusion, nourishing a cynical bitterness and acrimony of temper which gradually withered up the sources of health and life, till at length it became as visible to himself as it had for some time been to others, that the oil of existence was expended, burnt up, and that but a few weak flickers more, and the ailing man's plaints and griefs would be hushed in the dark silence of the grave.
Mr. Lisle had no relatives at Watley, and the only individual with whom he was on terms of personal intimacy was Mr. Peter Sowerby, an attorney of the place, who had for many years transacted all his business. This man visited Mr. Lisle most evenings, played at chess with him, and gradually acquired an influence over his client which that weak gentleman had once or twice feebly but vainly endeavored to shake off. To this clever attorney, it was rumored, Mr. Lisle had bequeathed all his wealth.
This piece of information had been put in circulation by Caleb Jennings, who was a sort of humble favorite of Mr. Lisle's, or, at all events, was regarded by the misanthrope with less dislike than he manifested toward others. Caleb cultivated a few flowers in a little plot of ground at the back of the house, and Mr. Lisle would sometimes accept a rose or a bunch of violets from him. Other slight services – especially since the recent death of his old and garrulous woman-servant, Esther May, who had accompanied him from London, and with whom Mr. Jennings had always been upon terms of gossiping intimacy – had led to certain familiarities of intercourse; and it thus happened that the inquisitive shoe-mender became partially acquainted with the history of the wrongs and griefs which preyed upon, and shortened the life of the prematurely-aged man.
The substance of this every-day, commonplace story, as related to us by Jennings, and subsequently enlarged and colored from other sources, may be very briefly told.
Ambrose Lisle, in consequence of an accident which occurred in his infancy, was slightly deformed. His right shoulder – as I understood, for I never saw him – grew out, giving an ungraceful and somewhat comical twist to his figure, which, in female eyes – youthful ones at least – sadly marred the effect of his intelligent and handsome countenance. This personal defect rendered him shy and awkward in the presence of women of his own class of society; and he had attained the ripe age of thirty-seven years, and was a rich and prosperous man, before he gave the slightest token of an inclination toward matrimony. About a twelvemonth previous to that period of his life, the deaths – quickly following each other – of a Mr. and Mrs. Stevens threw their eldest daughter, Lucy, upon Mr. Lisle's hands. Mr. Lisle had been left an orphan at a very early age, and Mrs. Stevens – his aunt, and then a maiden lady – had, in accordance with his father's will, taken charge of himself and brother till they severally attained their majority. Long, however, before she married Mr. Stevens, by whom she had two children – Lucy and Emily. Her husband, whom she survived but two months, died insolvent; and in obedience to the dying wishes of his aunt, for whom he appears to have felt the tenderest esteem, he took the eldest of her orphan children to his home, intending to regard and provide for her as his own adopted child and heiress. Emily, the other sister, found refuge in the house of a still more distant relative than himself.
The Stevenses had gone to live at a remote part of England – Yorkshire, I believe – and it thus fell out, that till his cousin Lucy arrived at her new home he had not seen her for more than ten years. The pale, and somewhat plain child, as he had esteemed her, he was startled to find had become a charming woman; and her naturally gay and joyous temperament, quick talents, and fresh young beauty, rapidly acquired an overwhelming influence over him. Strenuously but vainly he struggled against the growing infatuation – argued, reasoned with himself – passed in review the insurmountable objections to such a union, the difference of age – he leading toward thirty-seven, she barely twenty-one; he crooked, deformed, of reserved, taciturn temper – she full of young life, and grace, and beauty. It was useless; and nearly a year had passed in the bootless struggle