Beauchamp; or, The Error.

by G. P. R. James

"What bet?" asked Beauchamp, who had forgotten all about it.

"To catch the largest trout in the river before twelve o'clock," replied Isabella; "will you escort us? My dear aunt, won't you come too?"

"No, my dear," answered Mrs. Clifford; "I have letters to write, too, like your father."

"I have no letters to write," exclaimed Sir John Slingsby, somewhat petulantly; "I wish I had nothing less pleasant to do; but I have to see the steward and a damned lawyer about business--the greatest bores on earth. I wish to Heaven Peter the Great had been but autocrat of England for a bare month. Heaven and earth! how he would have thinned the roll of attorneys!--or if we could but bring them under the cutting and maiming act, what hanging and transporting we should have. I am sure they cut up our time and our comforts, maim our property, and cripple our resources. But the devil never abandons his own; and so they slip out of every noose that is made to catch them. There's that fellow, Stephen Gimlet, can make, they say, springes that will catch woodcocks and snipes, hares, pheasants, partridges, ruffs, and rees; hang me, if I don't ask him if he has not got any trap that will strangle an attorney."

"If he fails, ask Ned Hayward," said Isabella, half jokingly, half earnestly; "I have no doubt he would furnish you with what you want."

"Perhaps he would, perhaps he would," answered Sir John; "not a bad thought, Bella; but hang it, I must go and see the steward before that fellow Wharton comes. So good bye, good bye, for the present. Mind the luncheon time; and if Ned loses and does not bring me home a trout of at least three pounds, we'll drink his health in a bottle of the old hermitage--get your shawls and bonnets, get your shawls and bonnets; and now, Harriet, if you want to send over to your place, be quick with your letters, for I have got a man going to Tarningham at twelve."

Mrs. Clifford left the room with her brother, and was followed immediately by her daughter and niece. Beauchamp walked out into the hall, and got his hat, gave some directions to one of the servants in regard to sending up some of his clothes from the inn at Tarningham, when any body was sent down to the town; and then returned to the window of the breakfast-room. There he paused and looked out, revolving various things in his mind, and coming to the half-muttered conclusion, at length: "It must be so, it is quite clear--it is certain." But when any one determines that a thing is quite clear, is certain, before we agree with him in opinion, we should know what other trains of thought are going on in his mind at the moment, jostling this idea and that out of their right places, leaving others far behind, and stimulating others again to run at lightning speed, the Lord knows whither, to win their race. It is not at all impossible, that if you or I, dear reader, could see into Mr. Beauchamp's mind at this moment, we might come to a very different conclusion on the premises, and think that the proposition was any thing but, quite clear, the result not at all certain.

However that might be, there he stood with his hat in his hand, in very good spirits, when Miss Slingsby and her cousin appeared.

Isabella was rather fluttered, as we have said, about something or another; she felt a timidity that was not usual with her, and she got her cousin between herself and Mr. Beauchamp before they reached the door, as if she intended that he should offer Mary Clifford his arm. Beauchamp manœuvred so skilfully, however, that before they were through the door and down the steps, he was by Isabella's side again, and, as she had two sides, one of which was certain to be unprotected, while that side was almost certain to be the point of attack to a dexterous enemy, she gave up the battle at once, and let things take their course.

The walk, as Isabella managed it, was an exceedingly pleasant one. In the first place, there were the beauties of nature. To what heart, under what circumstances, do the beauties of nature fail to bring sweet feelings? There is something in the universe, of which we have no definite conception; perhaps, it is too universal, too wide, too vast, to submit itself to any thing like demonstration. We all feel it, we all know it, we all enjoy it. The ancients and some of the moderns have deified it and called it Pan. It is, in fact, the universal adaptation of one thing to another: the harmony of all God's works; the infinite music of an infinite variety. It is figured in music--faintly figured; for music is only the image of the whole by a part; the sequence of bright things is the melody of creation; their synchronous existence, the harmony of God's Almighty will. But in this, as in all else, woe be unto those who have worshipped the creature of the Creator, and who have mistaken this grand harmony in the infinity of created things, for the Godhead itself. It is but one of the expressions of Almighty love, and those expressions are as infinite as the love from which they emanate. It is our finite, our contracted, our exceedingly minute view of all things, that constantly keeps us down from the contemplation and the conception of the immeasurable to that which is within the ken of our own microscopic vision. If creation itself is infinite, the infinite harmony thereof is but a part of creation, and is in itself a proof of that intelligent Providence, which man denies, because he does not see.