Ah! that “talking over,” what a wonderful female attribute it is! how vast and important a part of “woman’s mission” does it constitute! in fact, we have met innumerable women—the majority of our female acquaintance, we should say—whose whole and entire mission appears to consist of a “call” to “talk over,” first, their neighbours’ affairs (a duty to their neighbour in which they never fail), secondly, their own. The French aphorism (seldom acted upon, by its voluble originators), Cela va sans dire, must seem unspeakably absurd to these advocates for an indefinite extension of the “freedom of debate;” while the “silent system” must appear a more “capital punishment” than death itself, always supposing the excellence of a punishment to be tested by its severity: but we are slightly digressing.
If anything were needed to prove the absurdity of human beings—creatures with immortal souls, placed in this world to prepare for eternity—darkening the sunshine of each other’s lives by bickering about trifles, that evidence would be afforded when we observe the manner in which such mental nebulæ vanish before the presence of any of the stern realities of existence. Thus when, breakfast being concluded, Harry was called mysteriously out of the apartment to learn that a mounted groom had just arrived from Hazlehurst Grange, with the intelligence that old Mr. Hazlehurst had been seized with a fit, from which, when the servant came away, he was not expected to recover, Coverdale’s only thought was how most tenderly and judiciously to break the sad news to Alice. Having executed his painful task with a degree of tact and delicacy of feeling for which those who knew only the rough side of his character would scarcely have given him credit, and soothed, to the best of his ability, the burst of grief with which Alice received the intelligence, Harry continued, “And now, love, the moment you are able to start, the phaeton will be ready; it is lighter than the close carriage, and in an emergency like the present, every minute becomes of consequence.”
“And you?” inquired Alice, glancing at him timidly through her tears.
“I of course will drive you myself; you did not suppose I should let you go alone.”
Alice could not reply, but as she pressed her husband’s hand caressingly, the old loving look came back into her eyes, and Harry felt that he was forgiven. On reaching the Grange the report of the sick man was more favourable than Alice had dared to hope. An apoplectic fit constitutes one of the few exceptional cases in which prompt medical assistance does not necessarily increase the evil, and the Esculapius of the neighbourhood had this time successfully interposed between death and his victim; while Mr. Hazlehurst had received a lesson sufficiently severe to prevent him from objecting to the substitution of toast and water and “bland” puddings for Port wine, bottled in the year 1830, and the roast beef of Old England. Coverdale having remained at the Grange for three days, during which time he had shaken hands with, and lamented over Arthur (who, summoned at the commencement of his father’s illness, appeared looking so pale and thin, that it was decided nem. con. that he was working himself to death—a view of the case which he rather than otherwise encouraged by the faintness of his denial), was forced to return to the Park to attend the next meeting of magistrates, and finally to dispose of the offending poachers. Accordingly, having arranged with Alice to send the close carriage for her on the day but one following, he took leave of the Hazlehurst family, and drove to H————. Here, after a long examination, the aforesaid poachers were convicted, and sentenced, one to nine months’, another to a year’s imprisonment—Markum’s evidence being so clear and convincing, that such an issue became inevitable. As the gamekeeper left the court, a tall, gipsy-looking fellow came up to him, and muttered in his car, “You’ll live to repent this day’s work, Master Keeper; look to yourself one of these dark nights.”
“Look to yourself if I catch you on our ground,” was Markum’s contemptuous rejoinder; “there’s enough oakum to pick in H———— gaol for Tom and you too.”
“Who is that fellow,” inquired Coverdale, as the man, perceiving that the keeper’s reply was beginning to attract attention, turned away with a scowl.
“That be Jack Hargrave, Mr. Coverdale, sir,” returned Markum; “brother along o’ Tom, as we’ve give twelve months to; and sarve ’im right, a poachin’, thievin’ wagrant.”
“Is this fellow a poacher also?” asked Harry.
“That is he then,” was the reply; “a reg’lur bred un, and as deep a hand as ever set a snare, only he’s so ‘wide o’,’ that it’s not so easy to nab the warmint; but I’ll be down upon ’im yet, for all his threatenings. He’s bin heard to swear he’ll put a charge o’ shot under my veskit some o’ these nights; he’d better not, though, or he may find there’s two can play at that game.”