"My father still gave me instruction in fencing, wrestling, the use of the broad-sword; but he gave them and I received them languidly. At length, one day, he said to me, 'Edward, you are sad, my boy; and it is time you should resume your studies. I shall be very lonely without you; but I think it will be better for you to go over to good Dr. Winthorne's, whom you love so well, and who, I am sure, will receive you as a pupil. We shall only be fifteen miles apart, and I can see you often.'
"I made no objection, for Buckley had grown odious to me: every thing there revived regrets: and in about a week I was quietly installed in the neat and roomy parsonage, the glebe and garden of which were bounded by the same stream which ran past the old house in which I was born. It had been there a brawling stream; but here, some ten miles farther down upon its winding course, it had become a slow and somewhat wide river.
"I wish I had time to tell you how I learned, and what I learned, under the good clergyman's instruction. He had his own notions—and very peculiar notions—in every thing. Latin and Greek he taught me; but he taught me French and Italian too,—and taught them all at once. His lessons were very short, for it was his maxim never to weary attention; but he took especial care that my bodily faculties should not lose any thing for want of exercise. He would say that he had known very clever hunchbacks and very learned and ingenious lame men, but that each of them had some peculiarity of judgment which showed that a straight intellect seldom inhabited a crooked body, or a strong mind a feeble one. He would make me wrestle and play at quoits and cudgels with plough-boys, shoot with the gamekeepers of neighboring estates, ride my pony over a rough country and dangerous leaps, and himself lead the way. He was a devout man, notwithstanding, and was highly esteemed by his parishioners, and by a small circle of noble gentlemen, to some of whom he was allied and who were not unfrequent guests at the parsonage. All this went on for about nine months, a considerable part of which time my father was absent from Buckley, travelling, as they said, for his health, in Italy, where he had spent some years when quite a young man. At length, when he returned, I went home to pass some time with him; but I found him not alone."
"Had he married again so early?" asked Clement Tournon, with a look of consternation.
"Oh, no!" replied Master Ned: "he never married again; but there was a young gentleman with him, some twenty-one or twenty-two years of age, tall, very handsome, but with a dark and heavy brow, which almost spoiled his beauty. He spoke English with a strong foreign accent, and had altogether the appearance of a foreigner. I naturally presumed he was a guest, and treated him as such; but it was evident that he was an exceedingly favored guest, and all the servants seemed to pay him the most profound attention. I know not why, but I speedily began to dislike him: perhaps it was a certain sort of patronizing air he assumed toward me,—not exactly that of an elder to a younger person, but that of a superior to an inferior. My father's conduct, too, was very strange. He did not introduce the visitor to me by name, but presented me to him, saying, 'My son Edward,' and during the rest of the day called him simply Richard. On the following morning I detected—or fancied I detected—the servants looking at me, watching me with an appearance of interest that almost amounted to compassion. They were all very fond of me, and each seemed to regard Master Ned—the only name I went by—as his own child; but when they now gazed upon me there was an air of vexation—almost of pity—on their faces, and once or twice I thought the old steward was about to tell me something of importance in private; but he broke off, and turned his conversation to common subjects.
"All this, however, was so disagreeable to me, that, after having stayed two days at Buckley, I returned to my old preceptor's house at Applethorpe, feeling more wretched than I had felt since the first sad shock of my mother's death.
"The same night, after supper, Dr. Winthorne questioned me closely as to my visit, and asked what had caused me to return so soon. Whether he saw any thing in my manner, or had heard of any thing from others, I did not know; but I told him all frankly, and he fell into a fit of thought which lasted till bedtime. On the following morning my studies, my exercises, and my amusements were renewed with increased activity. There was something more I wished to forget, as well as the irreparable loss of my mother; and I left not one moment unemployed. It was now the month of May, and the season had been both cold and rainy; but I never suffered either cold or rain, either snow or sleet, to keep me within-doors; and no naked Indian could be more hardy than I was. At length, some warm skies, with flying clouds and showers, came to cheer us; and, with my rod in my hand, I sallied forth one morning early to lure the speckled tyrants of the stream out of the water. I walked on with good success for about two miles, and arrived at a shadowy reach of the river, where it lapsed into some deep pools, and then, tumbling over a shelf of rock in a miniature cascade, rushed on deep and strong toward the east. I have said I was early; but there was some one there before me. A powerful-looking man, of some four or five and twenty years of age, was wading the stream with a rod in his hand and a pair of funnel-shaped boots upon his legs. Where he stood, the water did not come much above his knees; but I knew that a little farther on it deepened, and the bed of the stream was full of holes, in which the finest trout usually lay; but the stranger seemed a skilful angler, and, I doubted not, knew the river as well as I did. Not to disturb his sport, I sat quietly down on the bank and watched him. He was not very prepossessing in appearance, for his features were large and coarse, and though there was a certain sort of dignity about his carriage, yet his form was more that of a man accustomed to robust labor than to the more graceful sports of a gentleman. However, as I was gazing, he hooked a large fish, apparently somewhat too stout for his tackle; and, to prevent the trout from getting among the roots and stones while he played him, the fisherman kept stepping backward, with his face toward me and his back toward the deep run and the pool. 'Take care! take care!' I cried. But my warning came too late: his feet were already on the ridge of rock, and the next instant he fell over into the very deepest part of the water. He rose instantly, but whether he was seized with cramp, or that his large heavy boots filled with water, I know not; but he sank again at once with a loud cry, and I ran along the ridge of stone to give him help. The stream was much swollen with the late rains, and even there it was running very strong, so that I could hardly keep my footing; but I contrived to get to a spot near which he was just rising again, and held out the thickest end of my rod to him. It was barely within his reach; but he grasped it with one hand so sharply as almost to pull me over into the pool with him. I got my feet between two large masses of stone, however, and pulled hard, drawing him toward me till he could get hold of the rock with his hands. His safety was then easily insured; and I only remarked two things peculiar in his demeanor: one was, that he never thanked me; and the other, that in all the struggle he had contrived to retain his fishing-rod.
"'Can you not swim?' he asked, as soon as we had both reached the bank. I answered in the negative, and he added, 'Learn to swim. Please God, it may save your life some day. Learn to swim.' I offered to take him up to the parsonage that he might dry his clothes; but he refused, not very civilly; and then he asked my name, looking me very steadily in the face, without the slightest expression of gratitude for the aid I had rendered him, and no trace of either agitation or trouble from the danger he had run. 'You have kept your rod,' I said, 'but you have broken your line.'