LITMIR.BIZ

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life was a very serious matter, and did not allow of jokes. I remember too well my first dose of castor-oil. You too, Mr. Bob, have doubtless imbibed that initiatory preparation to the sweets of existence. The corners of your mouth have not recovered from the downward curves into which it so rigidly dragged them. Like myself, you are of grave temperament, and not easily moved to jocularity,—nay, an enthusiast for Progress is of necessity a man eminently dissatisfied with the present state of affairs. And chronic dissatisfaction resents the momentary relief of a joke.”

      “Give off chaffing, if you please,” said Bob, lowering the didascular intonations of his voice, “and just tell me plainly, did not my father say anything particular about me?”

      “Not a word: the only person of the male sex of whom he said anything particular was Tom Bowles.”

      “What, fighting Tom! the terror of the whole neighbourhood! Ah, I guess the old gentleman is afraid lest Tom may fall foul upon me. But Jessie Wiles is not worth a quarrel with that brute. It is a crying shame in the Government—”

      “What! has the Government failed to appreciate the heroism of Tom Bowles, or rather to restrain the excesses of its ardour?”

      “Stuff! it is a shame in the Government not to have compelled his father to put him to school. If education were universal—”

      “You think there would be no brutes in particular. It may be so; but education is universal in China, and so is the bastinado. I thought, however, that you said the schoolmaster was abroad, and that the age of enlightenment was in full progress.”

      “Yes, in the towns, but not in these obsolete rural districts; and that brings me to the point. I feel lost, thrown away here. I have something in me, sir, and it can only come out by collision with equal minds. So do me a favour, will you?”

      “With the greatest pleasure.”

      “Give the governor a hint that he can’t expect me, after the education I have had, to follow the plough and fatten pigs; and that Manchester is the place for ME.”

      “Why Manchester?”

      “Because I have a relation in business there who will give me a clerkship if the governor will consent. And Manchester rules England.”

      “Mr. Bob Saunderson, I will do my best to promote your wishes. This is a land of liberty, and every man should choose his own walk in it, so that, at the last, if he goes to the dogs, he goes to them without that disturbance of temper which is naturally occasioned by the sense of being driven to their jaws by another man against his own will. He has then no one to blame but himself. And that, Mr. Bob, is a great comfort. When, having got into a scrape, we blame others, we unconsciously become unjust, spiteful, uncharitable, malignant, perhaps revengeful. We indulge in feelings which tend to demoralize the whole character. But when we only blame ourselves, we become modest and penitent. We make allowances for others. And indeed self-blame is a salutary exercise of conscience, which a really good man performs every day of his life. And now, will you show me the room in which I am to sleep, and forget for a few hours that I am alive at all: the best thing that can happen to us in this world, my dear Mr. Bob! There’s never much amiss with our days, so long as we can forget about them the moment we lay our heads on the pillow.”

      The two young men entered the house amicably, arm in arm. The girls had already retired, but Mrs. Saunderson was still up to conduct her visitor to the guest’s chamber,—a pretty room which had been furnished twenty-two years ago on the occasion of the farmer’s marriage, at the expense of Mrs. Saunderson’s mother, for her own occupation when she paid them a visit, and with its dimity curtains and trellised paper it still looked as fresh and new as if decorated and furnished yesterday.

      Left alone, Kenelm undressed, and before he got into bed, bared his right arm, and doubling it, gravely contemplated its muscular development, passing his left hand over that prominence in the upper part which is vulgarly called the ball. Satisfied apparently with the size and the firmness of that pugilistic protuberance, he gently sighed forth, “I fear I shall have to lick Thomas Bowles.” In five minutes more he was asleep.

      CHAPTER X

      THE next day the hay-mowing was completed, and a large portion of the hay already made carted away to be stacked. Kenelm acquitted himself with a credit not less praiseworthy than had previously won Mr. Saunderson’s approbation. But instead of rejecting as before the acquaintance of Miss Jessie Wiles, he contrived towards noon to place himself near to that dangerous beauty, and commenced conversation. “I am afraid I was rather rude to you yesterday, and I want to beg pardon.”

      “Oh,” answered the girl, in that simple intelligible English which is more frequent among our village folks nowadays than many popular novelists would lead us into supposing, “oh, I ought to ask pardon for taking a liberty in speaking to you. But I thought you’d feel strange, and I intended it kindly.”

      “I’m sure you did,” returned Kenelm, chivalrously raking her portion of hay as well as his own, while he spoke. “And I want to be good friends with you. It is very near the time when we shall leave off for dinner, and Mrs. Saunderson has filled my pockets with some excellent beef-sandwiches, which I shall be happy to share with you, if you do not object to dine with me here, instead of going home for your dinner.”

      The girl hesitated, and then shook her head in dissent from the proposition.

      “Are you afraid that your neighbours will think it wrong?”

      Jessie curled up her lips with a pretty scorn, and said, “I don’t much care what other folks say, but is n’t it wrong?”

      “Not in the least. Let me make your mind easy. I am here but for a day or two: we are not likely ever to meet again; but, before I go, I should be glad if I could do you some little service.” As he spoke he had paused from his work, and, leaning on his rake, fixed his eyes, for the first time attentively, on the fair haymaker.

      Yes, she was decidedly pretty,—pretty to a rare degree: luxuriant brown hair neatly tied up, under a straw hat doubtless of her own plaiting; for, as a general rule, nothing more educates the village maid for the destinies of flirt than the accomplishment of straw-plaiting. She had large, soft blue eyes, delicate small features, and a complexion more clear in its healthful bloom than rural beauties generally retain against the influences of wind and sun. She smiled and slightly coloured as he gazed on her, and, lifting her eyes, gave him one gentle, trustful glance, which might have bewitched a philosopher and deceived a roue. And yet Kenelm by that intuitive knowledge of character which is often truthfulest where it is least disturbed by the doubts and cavils of acquired knowledge, felt at once that in that girl’s mind coquetry, perhaps unconscious, was conjoined with an innocence of anything worse than coquetry as complete as a child’s. He bowed his head, in withdrawing his gaze, and took her into his heart as tenderly as if she had been a child appealing to it for protection.

      “Certainly,” he said inly, “certainly I must lick Tom Bowles; yet stay, perhaps after all she likes him.”

      “But,” he continued aloud, “you do not see how I can be of any service to you. Before I explain, let me ask which of the men in the field is Tom Bowles?”

      “Tom Bowles?” exclaimed Jessie, in a tone of surprise and alarm, and turning pale as she looked hastily round; “you frightened me, sir: but he is not here; he does not work in the fields. But how came you to hear of Tom Bowles?”

      “Dine with me and I’ll tell you. Look, there is a quiet place in yon corner under the thorn-trees by that piece of water. See, they are leaving off work: I will go for a can of beer, and then, pray, let me join you there.”

      Jessie paused for a moment as if doubtful still; then again glancing at Kenelm, and assured by the grave kindness of his countenance, uttered a scarce audible assent and moved away towards the thorn-trees.

      As the sun now stood perpendicularly over their heads, and the hand of the clock in the village church tower,

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