Such were the remarks which Arthur was not supposed to hear, and to which he did not therefore consider himself called upon to reply. Seeing his father and mother in eager consultation with the still dripping Isaac, he speedily completed the arrangements for the next day’s meeting, toils, and pleasures, and joined the group. Isaac had but just recollected that in his pocket he brought a packet of letters and several newspapers, which had found their way, in some circuitous manner, to the store where he had been trafficking. The whole were deplorably soaked with mud. It seemed doubtful whether a line of the writing could ever be made out. But Mrs. Sneyd’s cleverness had been proved equal to emergencies nearly as great as this. She had once got rid of the stains of a stand full of ink which had been overset on a parchment which bore a ten-guinea stamp. She had recovered the whole to perfect smoothness, and fitness to be written upon. Many a time had she contrived to restore the writing which had been discharged from her father’s manuscript chemical lectures, when spillings from his experiments had occurred scarcely half an hour before the lecture-room began to fill. No wonder her husband was now willing to confide in her skill—no wonder he was anxious to see Temmy home as speedily as possible, that he might watch the processes of dipping and drying and unfolding, on which depended almost the dearest of his enjoyments,—intercourse with faithful friends far away.
Chapter II.
THE GENTLEMAN AT HOME.
Master Temple Temple was up early, and watching the weather, the next morning, with far more eagerness than his father would have approved, unless some of his own gentlemanlike pleasures had been in question. If Mr. Temple had known that his son and heir cared for the convenience of his industrious uncle Arthur, and of a parcel of labourers, the boy would hardly have escaped a long lecture on the depravity of his tastes, and the vulgarity of his sympathies. But Mr. Temple knew nothing that passed prior to his own majestic descent to the breakfast-room, where the silver coffee-pot was steaming fragrantly, and the windows were carefully opened or scrupulously shut, so as to temper the visitations of the outward air, while his lady sat awaiting his mood, and trembling lest he should find nothing that he could eat among the variety of forms of diet into which the few elements at the command of her cook had been combined. Mrs. Temple had never been very happy while within reach of markets and shops; but she was now often tempted to believe that almost all her troubles would be at an end if she had but the means of indulging her husband’s fastidious appetite. It was a real misery to be for ever inventing, and for ever in vain, new cookeries of Indian corn, beef, lean pork, geese and turkeys, honey and milk. Beyond these materials, she had nothing to depend upon but chance arrivals of flour, pickles, and groceries; and awfully passed the day when there was any disappointment at breakfast. She would willingly have surrendered her conservatory, her splendid ornaments, the pictures, plate, and even the library of her house, and the many thousand acres belonging to it, to give to her husband such an unscrupulous appetite as Arthur’s, or such a cheerful temper as Dr. Sneyd’s. It was hard that her husband’s ill-humour about his privations should fall upon her; for she was not the one who did the deed, whatever it might be, which drove the gentleman from English society. The sacrifice was quite as great to her as it could possibly be to him; and there was inexpressible meanness in Temple’s aggravating, by complaints of his own share, the suffering which he had himself brought upon her. Temple seemed always to think himself a great man, however; and always greatest when causing the utmost sensation in those about him.
This morning, he stalked into the breakfast room in remarkable state. He looked almost as tall as his wife when about to speak to her, and was as valiant in his threats against the people who disturbed him by passing before his window, as his son in planning his next encounter with Brawn’s great turkey.
“Come away from the window, this moment, Temple. I desire you will never stand there when the people are flocking past in this manner. Nothing gratifies them more. They blow those infernal horns for no other purpose than to draw our attention. Ring the bell, Temple.”
When Marius appeared, in answer to the bell, he was ordered to pull down that blind; and if the people did not go away directly, to bid them begone, and blow their horns somewhere out of his hearing.
"They will be gone soon enough, sir. It is a busy day with them. They are making a frolic to bridge the Creek, because of what happened—"
A terrified glance of Mrs. Temple’s stopped the man in his reference to what had taken place the evening before. It was hoped that the stock of coffee might be husbanded till more could arrive, that the idea of chocolate might be insinuated into the gentleman’s mind, and that the shortness of the wax candles, and the deficiency of light in the hall at night, might possibly escape observation.
“The bridge over the Creek being much wanted by every body, sir,” continued Marius, "every body is joining the frolic to work at it; that is, if——"