“It shall be as you wish, sir. I will write to his sister by this post.”
“And after one day in town, Fred, I am ready to accompany you anywhere.”
CHAPTER IX. MAJOR M'CORMICK'S LETTER
As it was not often that Major M'Cormick performed the part of a letter-writer, perhaps my reader will pardon me if I place him before him on one of these rare occasions. If success would always respond to labor, his would have been a real triumph; for the effort cost him many days, two sleepless nights, a headache, and half a quire of paper.
Had not Stapylton retained him by an admirably selected hamper of good things from a celebrated Italian warehouse in the Strand, I am afraid that M'Cormick's zeal might have cooled down to the zero of forgetfulness; but the reindeer hams and the Yarmouth bloaters, the potted shrimps and the preserved guavas, were an appeal that addressed themselves to that organ which with him paid the double debt of digestion and emotion. He felt that such a correspondent was worth a sacrifice, and he made it That my reader may appreciate the cost of the achievement, I would have him imagine how a mason about to build a wall should be obliged to examine each stone before he laid it, test its constituent qualities, its shape and its size,—for it was thus that almost every word occasioned the Major a reference to the dictionary, spelling not having been cultivated in his youth, nor much practised in his riper years. Graces of style, however, troubled him little; and, to recur to my figure of the stone-mason, if he was embarrassed in his search for the materials, he cared wonderfully little for the architecture. His letter ran thus, and the reader will perceive that it must have been written some weeks after the events recorded in the last chapter:—
“Mac's Nest, October, Thursday.
“Dear S.,—A touch of my old Walcheren complaint has laid me up since Tuesday, and if the shakes make me illegible now, that's the reason why. Besides this the weather is dreadful; cold east winds and rains, sometimes sleet, every day; and the turf so wet, it 's only smoke, not fire. I believe it is the worst climate in Europe, and it gets wetter every year.
“The hamper came to hand, but though it was marked 'Carriage paid, this side up,' they upset it and broke two bottles, and charged seven and fourpence-halfpenny for the bringing it, which is, I think, enormous; at least, Tim Hacket got over a thrashing-machine from Scotland last spring for twelve and four, and there 's no comparison between the two. Thanks to you, however, all the same; but if you can get any of this charge reduced, so much the better, not to speak of the bottles,—both mixed pickles—which they ought to make good.
“I am glad to see you are touching up the Radicals in the North; powder and ball will do more to bring them to reason than spouting in Parliament. The papers say there was nine killed and twenty-three wounded; and one fellow, the 'Stockport Bee,' says, that 'if the Butcher that led the dragoons is n't turned out of the service with disgrace no gentleman will degrade himself by entering the army.' Isn't the Butcher yourself? Miss Barrington, always your friend, says it is; and that if the account of another paper, called the 'Ægis,' be true, you 'll have to go to a court-martial. I stood stoutly to you through it all, and declared that when the niggers was up at Jamaica, we had n't time to take the names of the prisoners, and we always cut one of their ears off to know them again. Old Peter laughed till the tears ran down his face, but Dinah said, 'If I did not suppose, sir, that you were inventing a very graceless joke, I'd insist on your leaving this room and this house on the instant.' It was ten o'clock at night, and raining hard; so you may guess I gave in. Bad as she is, the young one is her equal, and I gave up all thoughts of what you call 'prosecuting my suit' in that quarter. She isn't even commonly civil to me, and when I ask her for, maybe, the mustard at dinner, she turns away her head, and says, 'Darby, give Major M'Cormick the salt.' That's French politeness, perhaps; but I'll pay them all off yet, for they can't get sixpence on the mortgage, and I 'm only drinking out that bin of old Madeira before I tell them that I won't advance the money. Why should I? The women treat me worse than a dog, and old B. is neither more nor less than a fool. Dill, the doctor, however he got it, says it's all up about the suit with the India Company; that there's no proof of the Colonel's marriage at all, that the charges against him were never cleared up, and that nothing can come out of it but more disgrace and more exposure.