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He bestows upon us.”
Aubrey shook his head gently, but replied not.
“Yes,” resumed I, after a pause,—“yes, it is indeed a glorious and fair world which we have for our inheritance. Look how the sunlight sleeps yonder upon fields covered with golden corn; and seems, like the divine benevolence of which you spoke, to smile upon the luxuriance which its power created. This carpet at our feet, covered with flowers that breathe, sweet as good deeds, to Heaven; the stream that breaks through that distant copse, laughing in the light of noon, and sending its voice through the hill and woodland, like a messenger of glad tidings; the green boughs over our head, vocal with a thousand songs, all inspirations of a joy too exquisite for silence; the very leaves, which seem to dance and quiver with delight,—think you, Aubrey, that these are so sullen as not to return thanks for the happiness they imbibe with being: what are those thanks but the incense of their joy? The flowers send it up to heaven in fragrance; the air and the wave, in music. Shall the heart of man be the only part of His creation that shall dishonour His worship with lamentation and gloom? When the inspired writers call upon us to praise our Creator, do they not say to us,—‘Be joyful in your God?’”
“How can we be joyful with the Judgment-Day ever before us?” said Aubrey; “how can we be joyful” (and here a dark shade crossed his countenance, and his lip trembled with emotion) “while the deadly passions of this world plead and rankle at the heart? Oh, none but they who have known the full blessedness of a commune with Heaven can dream of the whole anguish and agony of the conscience, when it feels itself sullied by the mire and crushed by the load of earth!” Aubrey paused, and his words, his tone, his look, made upon me a powerful impression. I was about to answer, when, interrupting me, he said, “Let us talk not of these matters; speak to me on more worldly topics.”
“I sought you,” said I; “that I might do so,” and I proceeded to detail to Aubrey as much of my private intercourse with the Abbe as I deemed necessary in order to warn him from too close a confidence in the wily ecclesiastic. Aubrey listened to me with earnest attention: the affair of the letter; the gross falsehood of the priest in denying the mention of my name, in his epistle, evidently dismayed him. “But,” said he, after a long silence,—“but it is not for us, Morton,—weak, ignorant, inexperienced as we are,—to judge prematurely of our spiritual pastors. To them also is given a far greater license of conduct than to us, and ways enveloped in what to our eyes are mystery and shade; nay, I know not whether it be much less impious to question the paths of God’s chosen than to scrutinize those of the Deity Himself.”
“Aubrey, Aubrey, this is childish!” said I, somewhat moved to anger. “Mystery is always the trick of imposture: God’s chosen should be distinguished from their flock only by superior virtue, and not by a superior privilege in deceit.”
“But,” said Aubrey, pointing to a passage in the book before him, “see what a preacher of the word has said!” and Aubrey recited one of the most dangerous maxims in priestcraft, as reverently as if he were quoting from the Scripture itself. “‘The nakedness of truth should never be too openly exposed to the eyes of the vulgar. It was wisely feigned by the ancients that Truth did lie concealed in a well!’”
“Yes,” said I, with enthusiasm, “but that well is like the holy stream at Dodona, which has the gift of enlightening those who seek it, and the power of illumining every torch which touches the surface of its water!”
Whatever answer Aubrey might have made was interrupted by my uncle, who appeared approaching towards us with unusual satisfaction depicted on his comely countenance.
“Well, boys, well,” said he, when he came within hearing, “a holyday for you! Ods fish,—and a holier day than my old house has known since its former proprietor, Sir Hugo, of valorous memory, demolished the nunnery, of which some remains yet stand on yonder eminence. Morton, my man of might, the thing is done; the court is purified; the wicked one is departed. Look here, and be as happy as I am at our release;” and he threw me a note in Montreuil’s writing:—
TO SIR WILLIAM DEVEREUX, KT.
MY HONOURED FRIEND,—In consequence of a dispute between your eldest nephew, Count Morton Devereux, and myself, in which he desired me to remember, not only that our former relationship of tutor and pupil was at an end, but that friendship for his person was incompatible with the respect due to his superior station, I can neither so far degrade the dignity of letters, nor, above all, so meanly debase the sanctity of my divine profession, as any longer to remain beneath your hospitable roof,—a guest not only unwelcome to, but insulted by, your relation and apparent heir. Suffer me to offer you my gratitude for the favours you have hitherto bestowed on me, and to bid you farewell forever.
“Well, sir, what say you?” cried my uncle, stamping his cane firmly on the ground, when I had finished reading the letter, and had transmitted it to Aubrey.
“That the good Abbe has displayed his usual skill in composition. And my mother? Is she imbued with our opinion of his priestship?”
“Not exactly, I fear. However, Heaven bless her, she is too soft to say ‘nay.’ But those Jesuits are so smooth-tongued to women. ‘Gad, they threaten damnation with such an irresistible air, that they are as much like William the Conqueror as Edward the Confessor. Ha! master Aubrey, have you become amorous of the old Jacobite, that you sigh over his crabbed writing, as if it were a billet-doux?”
“There seems a great deal of feeling in what he says, Sir,” said Aubrey, returning the letter to my uncle.
“Feeling!” cried the knight; “ay, the reverend gentry always have a marvellously tender feeling for their own interest,—eh, Morton?”
“Right, dear sir,” said I, wishing to change a subject which I knew might hurt Aubrey; “but should we not join yon party of dames and damsels? I see they are about to make a water excursion.”
“‘Sdeath, sir, with all my heart,” cried the good-natured knight; “I love to see the dear creatures amuse themselves; for, to tell you the truth, Morton,” said he, sinking his voice into a knowing whisper, “the best thing to keep them from playing the devil is to encourage them in playing the fool!” and, laughing heartily at the jest he had purloined from one of his favourite writers, Sir William led the way to the water-party.
CHAPTER XIV
THE Abby disappeared! It is astonishing how well everybody bore his departure. My mother scarcely spoke on the subject; but along the irrefragable smoothness of her temperament all things glided without resistance to their course, or trace where they had been. Gerald, who, occupied solely in rural sports or rustic loves, seldom mingled in the festivities of the house, was equally silent on the subject. Aubrey looked grieved for a day or two: but his countenance soon settled into its customary and grave softness; and, in less than a week, so little was the Abbe spoken of or missed that you would scarcely have imagined Julian Montreuil had ever passed the threshold of our gate. The oblivion of one buried is nothing to the oblivion of one disgraced.
Meanwhile I pressed for my departure; and, at length, the day was finally fixed. Ever since that conversation with Lady Hasselton which has been set before the reader, that lady had lingered and lingered—though the house was growing empty, and London, in all seasons, was, according to her, better than the country in any—until the Count Devereux, with that amiable modesty which so especially characterized him, began to suspect that the Lady Hasselton lingered on his account. This emboldened that bashful personage to press in earnest for the fourth seat in the beauty’s carriage, which we have seen in the conversation before mentioned had been previously offered to him in jest. After a great affectation of horror at the proposal, the Lady Hasselton yielded. She had always, she said, been dotingly fond of children,