One of the members of the common council, it seems, had a brother who was a silversmith in London, and who, having made a comfortable competence, wisely retired from trade, came down to the town of which he was a native and a freeman, and was soon admitted into the municipal body. Now, whether he had frequented a debating society or the reporters' gallery of St. Stephen's, whether he had studied under Cobbett or Hunt, Burdett or Hume, or any of those gentlemen--we do not mean either to be personal or political--any of those gentlemen, we say, famed for opposition, it would seem as if, from the moment he came down, he had determined to overthrow the supremacy of our worthy friend, and to worry him as though he had been a bishop, a baited bull, or a prime-minister. Moreover, he was oratorical; he would speak you a speech by the hour, in which he would confound all that the straightforward good sense of our friend had made clear; he would pour upon the simplest point a torrent of fine words, not always pronounced with the utmost purity; he would render the most pellucid position opaque by the turbid stream of eloquence, and would add a few words of Latin, with very little reverence for the terminations of the nouns or the tenses of the verbs, but still with sufficient volubility to astound and overawe the ignorant ears around him.
Our friend was resolved not to die without a struggle; and, at the close of any of these triumphant orations, he would rise, feeling morally convinced--seeing, knowing, believing--that all his adversary said was idle, absurd, and stupid, but yet labouring under a consciousness of his own incapability to disentangle the subject which had been twisted up into a Gordian knot, or even to find out the thin, feeble, and insignificant thread of his foe's argumentation amid the crystals of sugar candy with which his eloquence had invested it. He would rise, as we have said, and gasp, and struggle, and sit down again, impotent of reply.
There was no help for it; he felt himself worsted; and, after the agony of a couple of months, he retreated from a field which he no longer could maintain. He resigned his post in the town council; made the necessary arrangements with his partner in business to give up his active share, and retired, a man well to do, to spend the rest of his days in peace at the little coast-town, about ten miles from his former dwelling, the localities of which we have already described. There, then, he settled with his wife and only daughter; there he embellished, improved, did good, and enjoyed his doings, and passed his time in that busy and important usefulness which was so well suited to his disposition.
But we forgot all this time to make the reader acquainted with his name. It was one which, though not uncommon, was in some degree remarkable, being neither more nor less than John Deer. Now he certainly was not so lightfooted as a roe, nor so timid as a stag, nor possessed of any of the distinctive qualities of the cervine creation. He was much too consequential a person also for any one--not even excepting his own wife--to venture to play upon his name, and turn John Deer into Dear John: so that the name of Deer could come to no harm in his hands. But, alack and well-a-day! he had, as we have before said, one fair daughter, whom he loved passing well; and she was beautiful as a rose, gentle as a dove, timid as a young fawn, and her name was Ann; so that it very naturally happened that when anybody spoke of her as Annie Deer, there was an expression about the lips and a meaning in the eyes which gave the last e in her name very much the effect of an a; and Annie Deer from her father's and her mother's lips--and one other pair besides--was Annie dear whenever she was mentioned.
Now it was natural for her father to call her so, and very natural for her mother to call her so, and still more natural than all for one other person in the village to call her so also; but who that person was remains to be shown. We will not keep the reader a moment in suspense. Suspense is wrong, unjust, wicked: persons who have been condemned by a competent jury, and judged by a competent judge, are the only ones to whom suspense should be applied; and very seldom, if ever, even then. The person who pronounced the name of Annie Deer with such a tone shall be disclosed to the reader immediately.
There was a poor widow in the village, who had seen better days, but whose whole remaining fortune was a hundred and fifty pounds per annum, and more than one half of that was on annuity. Yet out of this sum she had contrived both to live with great respectability, and to give her son, whom she loved far better than herself, an education equal to the station in which his father had moved. When Mr. Deer and his family had first come to live at the little town of Saltham, as we shall call the place, William Stanhope was absent with his ship, for he had by this time become a mate in an East Indiaman, and Mr. and Mrs. Deer did everything they could to be kind and civil to Mrs. Stanhope, and make her time pass cheerfully till her son's return.
When at length he did come back, they welcomed him as an old friend, pouring upon him all those civilities and festivities with which we greet the long-absent and long-expected. He was a very handsome young man; brave, gay, and happy in his disposition; gentlemanly and well educated, but, withal, touched with the frank straightforwardness of a sailor; but the quality which, joined with others, pleased Mr. Deer the most, was a prudent and economical calculation of expenses, which taught him what was just to others and what was just to himself. Mr. Deer liked him very much; and, though Annie Deer was at that time only fourteen, and no great chance existed of her falling in love with anybody, yet Mr. Deer, being famed for foresight, resolved that he would examine young Stanhope's character thoroughly, and watch him well.
That year William Stanhope had brought home no great wealth, having scarcely any capital to trade upon; but he brought some very pretty presents for his mother, which showed him to be a very kind and dutiful young man. The next year, having increased his capital, his gains were increased; and, besides bringing home more money, he brought home not only presents for his mother, but presents for Annie Deer, which he gave straightforwardly to her father, expressing his gratitude for all the kindness which had been shown to his mother during his absence.
Mr. Deer took the presents, and inquired, with looks of much personal interest, into the speculations of the young sailor and their success. William Stanhope was frank and candid; and though the sum that he had made was not very brilliant, yet, compared with his means of making it, it promised so well, that Mr. Doer began to calculate, and found that liberal assistance might without risk enable young Stanhope to advance his fortune rapidly, and he made the offer at once. It was embraced with thanks, and the next voyage ensured to William Stanhope competence as a single man.
He had a higher ambition, however. He was now competent to take the command of a ship. He was respected and esteemed by all who knew him; and a favourable offer was made to him, but the sum of ready money required was very large; and, though he mentioned the offer to his mother, with all its advantages, and all the difficulties that interposed, he spoke of it to no one else. His mother went that evening to drink tea with the family under the castle, but William Stanhope remained at home musing, alleging that he had letters of business to write; and the next morning, instead of taking his way to the house of Mr. Deer, as was his common practice, he wandered along solitary upon the sands round the bay, seeming to count every pebble that studded the shore. He had not gone very far, however, before a friendly hand was laid upon his arm, and Mr. Deer, joining him in his walk, entered at once upon business. He told him that Mrs. Stanhope had related to them the evening before the offer which had been made concerning the command of a ship, and then went on to ask his young friend why he had not applied to him, John Deer, for the money.