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.
I have the honour to be,
With the most profound respect, etc.,
JULIAN MONTREUIL.
"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?"