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the cliff and of the scaur? How should it pass, but with all the wings that beauty and joy can add to help its flight!”
“And wit and song, too, my good old friend,”, said Mordaunt, half-serious, half-jesting, as he shook the old man cordially by the hand. — ” These cannot be wanting, where Claud Halcro comes!”
Jeer me not, Mordaunt, my good lad,” replied the old man; “ When your foot is as slow as mine, your wit frozen, and your song out of tune”
“How can you belie yourself, my good master?” answered Mordaunt, who was not unwilling to avail himself of his old friend’s peculiarities to introduce something like conversation, break the awkwardness of this singular meeting, and gain time for observation, ere requiring an explanation of the change of conduct which the family seemed to have adopted towards him. “ Say not so,” he continued. “ Time, my old friend, lays his hand lightly on the bard. Have I not heard you say, the poet partakes the immortality of the song? and surely the great English poet, you used to tell us of, was elder than yourself when he pulled the bow-oar among all the wits of London.”
This alluded to a story which was, as the French term it, Halcro’s cheval de battaille, and any allusion to which was certain at once to place him in the saddle, and to push his hobbyhorse into full career.
His laughing eye kindled with a sort of enthusiasm, which the ordinary folks of this world might have called crazed, while he dashed into the subject which he best loved to talk upon. “ Alas, alas! my dear Mordaunt Mertoun — silver is silver, and waxes not dim by use — and pewter is pewter, and grows the longer the duller. It is not for poor Claud Halcro to name himself in the same twelvemonth with the immortal John Dryden. True it is, as I may have told you before, that I have seen that great man, nay I have been in the Wits’ Coffeehouse, as it was then called, and had once a pinch out of his own very snuffbox. I must have told you all how it happened, but here is Captain Cleveland who never heard it. — I lodged, you must know, in Russel-street. I question not but you know Russel-street, Covent-Garden, Captain Cleveland?”
“I should know its latitude pretty well, Mr Halcro,” said the Captain, smiling; “ but I believe you mentioned the circumstance yesterday, and besides we have the day’s duty in hand — you must play us this song which we are to study.”
“It will not serve the turn now,” said Halcro, “ we must think of something that will take in our dear Mordaunt, the first voice in the island, whether for a part or solo. I will never be he will touch a string to you, unless Mordaunt Mer-touri is to help us out. — What say you, my fairest Night? — what think you, my sweet Dawn of Day?” he added, addressing the young women, upon whom, as we have said elsewhere, he had long before bestowed these allegorical names.
“Mr Mordaunt Mertoun,” said Minna, “ has come too late to be of our band on this occasion — it is our misfortune, but it cannot be helped.”
“How? what?” said Halcro, hastily — ” too late — and you have practised together all your lives — take my word, my bonny lasses, that old tunes are sweetest, and old. friends surest. Mr Cleveland has a fine bass, that must be allowed; but I would have you trust for the first effect to one of the twenty fine airs you can sing where MordauntV tenor joins so well with your own witchery — here is my lovely Day approves of the change in her heart.”
“You were never in your life more mistaken, father Halcro,” said Brenda, her cheeks again reddening, more with displeasure, it seemed, than with shame.
“Nay, but how is this?” said the old man,- pausing, and looking at them alternately. t( What-have we got here? — a cloudy night and a red morning? — that betokens rough weather — What means all this, young women? — where lies the offence? — In me, I fear; for the blame is always laid upon the oldest when young folks like you go by the ears.’“
“The blame is not with you, father Halcro,” said Minna, rising, and taking her sister by the arm, “ if indeed there be blame any where.”
“I should fear then, Minna,” said Mordaunt, endeavouring to soften his tone into one of indifferent pleasantry, “ that the new comer has brought the offence along with him.”
“When no offence is taken,” replied Minna, with her usual gravity, “ it matters not by whom such may have been offered.”
“Is it possible, Minna!” exclaimed Mordaunt, “ and is it you who speak thus to me? — And you too, Brenda, can you too judge so hardly of me, yet without permitting me one moment of honest and frank explanation r”‘
“Those who should know best,” answered Brenda, in a low but decisive tone of voice, “ have told us their pleasure, and it must be done. — Sister, I think we have staid too long here, and will be wanted elsewhere — Mr Mertoun will excuse us on so busy a day.’“
The sisters linked their arms together. Halcro in vain endeavoured to stop them, making, at the same time, a theatrical gesture, and exclaiming, “Now, Day and Night, but this is wondrous strange!”
Then turned to Mordaunt Mertoun, and added, — ” The girls are possessed with the spirit of mutability, shewing, as our master Spenser well saith, that
‘Among all living creatures, more or lesse,
Change still doth reign, and keep the greater away.’
Captain Cleveland,” he continued, “ know you any thing that has happened to put these two juvenile graces out of tune?”
“He will lose his reckoning,” answered Cleveland, “ that spends time in inquiring why the wind shifts a point, or why a woman changes her mind. Were I Mr Mordaunt, I would not ask the proud wenches another question on such a subject.”
“It is a friendly advice, Captain Cleveland,” replied Mordaunt, “ and I will not hold it the less so that it has been given unasked. Allow me to inquire if you are yourself as indifferent to the opinion of your female friends as it seems you would have me to be?”
“Who, I?” said the Captain, with an air of frank indifference. “ I never thought twice upon such a subject. I never saw a woman worth thinking twice about after the anchor was a-peak — on shore it is another thing; and I will laugh, sing, dance, and love, if they like it, with twenty girls, were they but half so pretty as those who have left us, and make them heartily welcome to change their course in the sound of a boatswain’s whistle. It will be odds but I wear as fast as they can.”
A patient is seldom pleased with that sort of consolation which is founded on holding light the malady of which he complains; and Mordaunt felt disposed to be offended with Captain Cleveland, both for taking notice of his embarrassment, and intruding upon him his own opinion; and he-replied, therefore, somewhat sharply, “ that Captain Cleveland’s sentiments were only suited to such as had the art to become universal. favourites wherever chance happened to throw them, and who. could not, lose, in one place more than their merit was sure to gain for them in another.”
This was spoken ironically; but there was, to confess the truth, a superior knowledge of the world, and a consciousness of external merit at least about the man, which rendered his interference doubly disagreeable. As Sir Lucius “O’Trigger says, there was an air of success about Captain Cleveland which was mighty provoking. Young, handsome, and well assured, his air of nautical bluntness sate naturally and easily upon him, and was perhaps particularly well fitted to the simple manners of the remote country in which he found himself; and where, even in the best families, a greater degree of refinement might have rendered his conversation rather less acceptable. He was contented, in the present instance, to smile good-humouredly at the obvious discontent of Mordaunt Mertoun, and replied, “ You are angry with me, my good friend, but you cannot make me angry with you. The fair hands of all the pretty women I ever saw in my life would never have fished me up out of the roost of Sumburgh. So pray do not quarrel with me; for here is Mr Halcro witness that I have struck both jack and topsail, and should you fire a broadside into me, cannot return a single shot.”
“Ay, ay,” said Halcro, “ you must be friends with Captain Cleveland, Mordaunt. Never quarrel with your