Meanwhile Lucy, all in tears, for she loved her uncle greatly, ran down to the squire to show him Brandon's magnificent present.
“Ah,” said the squire, with a sigh, “few men were born with more good, generous, and great qualities (pity only that his chief desire was to get on in the world; for my part, I think no motive makes greater and more cold-hearted rogues) than my brother William!”
CHAPTER XVIII.
Why did she love him? Curious fool, be still!
Is human love the growth of human will?
To her he might be gentleness!
LORD BYRON.
In three weeks from the time of his arrival, Captain Clifford was the most admired man in Bath. It is true the gentlemen, who have a quicker tact as to the respectability of their own sex than women, might have looked a little shy upon him, had he not himself especially shunned appearing intrusive, and indeed rather avoided the society of men than courted it; so that after he had fought a duel with a baronet (the son of a shoemaker), who called him one Clifford, and had exhibited a flea-bitten horse, allowed to be the finest in Bath, he rose insensibly into a certain degree of respect with the one sex as well as popularity with the other. But what always attracted and kept alive suspicion, was his intimacy with so peculiar and dashing a gentleman as Mr. Edward Pepper. People could get over a certain frankness in Clifford's address, but the most lenient were astounded by the swagger of Long Ned. Clifford, however, not insensible to the ridicule attached to his acquaintances, soon managed to pursue his occupations alone; nay, he took a lodging to himself, and left Long Ned and Augustus Tomlinson (the latter to operate as a check on the former) to the quiet enjoyment of the hairdresser's apartments. He himself attended all public gayeties; and his mien, and the appearance of wealth which he maintained, procured him access into several private circles which pretended to be exclusive,—as if people who had daughters ever could be exclusive! Many were the kind looks, nor few the inviting letters, which he received; and if his sole object had been to marry an heiress, he would have found no difficulty in attaining it. But he devoted himself entirely to Lucy Brandon; and to win one glance from her, he would have renounced all the heiresses in the kingdom. Most fortunately for him, Mauleverer, whose health was easily deranged, had fallen ill the very day William Brandon left Bath; and his lordship was thus rendered unable to watch the movements of Lucy, and undermine or totally prevent the success of her lover. Miss Brandon, indeed, had at first, melted by the kindness of her uncle, and struck with the sense of his admonition (for she was no self-willed young lady, who was determined to be in love), received Captain Clifford's advances with a coldness which, from her manner the first evening they had met at Bath, occasioned him no less surprise than mortification. He retreated, and recoiled on the squire, who, patient and bold, as usual, was sequestered in his favourite corner. By accident, Clifford trod on the squire's gouty digital; and in apologizing for the offence, was so struck by the old gentleman's good-nature and peculiarity of expressing himself, that without knowing who he was, he entered into conversation with him. There was an off-hand sort of liveliness and candour, not to say wit, about Clifford, which always had a charm for the elderly, who generally like frankness above all the cardinal virtues; the squire was exceedingly pleased with him. The acquaintance, once begun, was naturally continued without difficulty when Clifford ascertained who was his new friend; and next morning, meeting in the pump-room, the squire asked Clifford to dinner. The entree to the house thus gained, the rest was easy. Long before Mauleverer recovered his health, the mischief effected by his rival was almost beyond redress; and the heart of the pure, the simple, the affectionate Lucy Brandon was more than half lost to the lawless and vagrant cavalier who officiates as the hero of this tale.
One morning, Clifford and Augustus strolled out together. “Let us,” said the latter, who was in a melancholy mood, “leave the busy streets, and indulge in a philosophical conversation on the nature of man, while we are enjoying a little fresh air in the country.” Clifford assented to the proposal, and the pair slowly sauntered up one of the hills that surround the city of Bladud.
“There are certain moments,” said Tomlinson, looking pensively down at his kerseymere gaiters, “when we are like the fox in the nursery rhyme, 'The fox had a wound, he could not tell where,'—we feel extremely unhappy, and we cannot tell why. A dark and sad melancholy grows over us; we shun the face of man; we wrap ourselves in our thoughts like silkworms; we mutter fag-ends of dismal songs; tears come into our eyes; we recall all the misfortunes that have ever happened to us; we stoop in our gait, and bury our hands in our breeches-pockets; we say, 'What is life?—a stone to be shied into a horsepond!' We pine for some congenial heart, and have an itching desire to talk prodigiously about ourselves; all other subjects seem weary, stale, and unprofitable. We feel as if a fly could knock us down, and are in a humour to fall in love, and make a very sad piece of business of it. Yet with all this weakness we have at these moments a finer opinion of ourselves than we ever had before. We call our megrims the melancholy of a sublime soul, the yearnings of an indigestion we denominate yearnings after immortality, nay, sometimes 'a proof of the nature of the soul!' May I find some biographer who understands such sensations well, and may he style those melting emotions the offspring of the poetical character, which, in reality, are the offspring of—a mutton-chop!”
[Vide Moore's “Life of Byron,” in which it is satisfactorily shown
that if a man fast forty-eight hours, then eat three lobsters, and
drink Heaven knows how many bottles of claret; if, when he wake the
next morning, he sees himself abused as a demon by half the
periodicals of the country,—if, in a word, he be broken in his
health, irregular in his habits, unfortunate in his affairs, unhappy
in his home, and if then he should be so extremely eccentric as to
be low-spirited and misanthropical, the low spirits and the
misanthropy are by no means to be attributed to the above agreeable
circumstances, but, God wot, to the “poetical character”!]
“You jest pleasantly enough on your low spirits,” said Clifford; “but I have a cause for mine.”