“You have been making a fool of yourself as usual, James,” she cried. “Pray give Mr. Barlowe another cup of tea, Fanny. I vow that ’tis a shame for you, James Burney, to treat such a company as though you were on the deck of the Adventure facing your South Sea savages.”
But Dr. Burney, with his customary tact, raised a hand half reprovingly toward his wife.
“Give Mr. Barlowe his cup, and then pass one to me, Fanny,” he said, rising from the piano. “You know that James has spoken no more than the truth, my dear,” he added, smiling at his wife. “I can see that the rascal has been fooling while our backs were turned to him; but we know that he spoke no more than the truth—at least in that one sentence which he bawled out for us. He was, indeed, sent to a school where he was placed under an accomplished usher who was some time after hanged as a murderer. You see, madam—” he had turned, still smiling, to Miss Reynolds, thereby doing much to restore her confidence in the sanity of the family—“You see that James was from the first so desperate a young rascal that, just as a boy who is an adept at figures is educated for the counting-house, and one who spends all the day before he is six picking out tunes on the harpsichord should be apprenticed, as I was, to a musician, so we thought our James should be sent whither he could be properly grounded in the only profession at which he was likely to excel. But, alas! the poor usher was carried off by the police, tried at the next assizes and duly hanged before James had made much progress in his studies; but I believe that a few years in the navy does as much for a youth who has made up his mind to succeed, as a protracted course under a fully qualified criminal.”
Miss Reynolds looked as if she were not quite certain that, in spite of his smiles, Dr. Burney was jesting; but when Mrs. Burney, seeing how her husband’s mock seriousness was likely to produce a wrong impression upon plain people, said:
“You must recall hearing about Mr. Eugene Aram some years back, Mrs. Reynolds,” that lady showed that her mind was greatly relieved.
“I recall the matter without difficulty,” she said. “The man was usher at the grammar school at Lynn.”
“And no school had a more learned teacher than that unfortunate man,” said Sir Joshua. Young Barlowe had been divided in his amazement at what Dr. Burney had said, and at the sight of Sir Joshua holding the trumpet to his ear, though the instrument remained mute. He had never found himself within the circle of so startling a society. He wished himself safe at home in the Poultry, where people talked sense and made no attempt to blow a trumpet with their ears.
“James had acquired quite a liking for poor Aram,” said Dr. Burney, “and, indeed, I own to having had a high opinion of the man’s ability myself. It was to enable him to purchase books necessary for his studies in philology that he killed his victim—a contemptible curmudgeon named Johnstone. I fear that all our sympathy was on the side of the usher.”
“I was greatly interested in Mr. Aram, and read a full account of his trial,” said Sir Joshua. “I wonder that a man of so sensitive a mind as his did not so brood over his crime as to cause suspicion to fall on him earlier than it did.”
“Only upon one occasion it seemed that he was affected by an incident which might possibly have awakened some suspicion in the mind of a person given to suspicion,” said Dr. Burney. “James had been presented with a copy of the translation of Gessner’s ‘Death of Abel’—everyone was going mad about the book that year—more copies were sold of it than of any translation since Pope’s ‘Homer,’ but I fancy James found it dull enough reading. He had it on his knee trying to get through a page or two in case the kind donor might question him upon it, when the usher came up. He took the volume in his hand and glanced at the title. Down the book fell from his grasp and he hurried away without a word—‘as if he had been stung,’ James said, in telling us about it, to excuse the broken cover. Of course, I never gave a thought to the matter at the time; but when I heard of the arrest of Eugene Aram the following year, I recalled the incident.”