Felix fulfilled his intention of getting up, though he went no farther than his own fire-side, where soon after tea he was joined by Clement, looking very serious, and armed with Bible, Prayer-book, and copy-book. He was to take Felix's Sunday class the next day; but whereas he had done so for the two months of the Ewmouth visit in the summer, there seemed no special necessity for a consultation, which in fact proved to be a rehearsal of the morrow's lesson, with various instructions to Felix himself, on what Clement called 'Church Teaching,' in oblivion that the simple truths of religion are as much Church teaching as the distinctive doctrines of his own set.
As vehement laughter pealed across the passage, Felix ventured to suggest that something was going on there.
'Yes,' said Clement; 'they were beginning some game, but I distrust Edgar's wit.'
'I don't think holding aloof always good.'
'When one's presence is a stimulus to irreverence?'
'Because you present yourself as a butt, instead of laughing with him, and giving things a turn.'
'Impossible, where one feels deeply.'
Felix believed it was impossible in the present case, and resigned himself, though pricking up his ears at the ripples of mirth and the shrieks of ecstatic uncontrollable laughter that reached his ear; until at last Lance burst in, laughing so that he could hardly stand upright, and bringing a paper in his hand for Felix's benefit.
It had been the game of adjectives, and Edgar, the conductor, had audaciously made its framework the Pursuivant's report of the valedictory sermon that Mr. Mowbray Smith was to preach on the morrow. It was a most comical combination, so well had Edgar's outline hit off the editor's desire to make the best of it, coupled with personalities that neither Mr. Smith would have preached nor he reported unless they had been in the palace of truth; the whole rendered the more grotesque by the hap-hazard adjectives that seasoned the discourse, sometimes deliciously inapposite, sometimes fantastically appropriate. An audience had stolen behind Lance to taste its sweets a second time; and the drollery, the vraisemblance, and touches of malice, quite choked him as he read, and overpowered Felix with mirth, all the more at the shocked countenance that Clement preserved throughout, while in the background there was a renewed chuckling, roaring, and rolling, at the more brilliant sallies.
The whole family had been viewing Edgar with more or less of awe, pity, and curiosity, as an injured hero, but had been beguiled into the maddest mirth, though as much disgusted with themselves for giggling as with him for making them giggle. Wilmet herself had succumbed, and Cherry had been in an almost hysterical transport of laughter, till her jaws ached, and her eyes were weak; and she was so exhausted that she could hardly crawl into Felix's room to wish him good-night, and then scarcely durst speak to him lest she should burst into tears; while as to the younger ones, it was altogether delightful to them at the moment, and they regarded the transactions of February as a dream.