‘Did you get any inspiration from the turret of St. Mary Redcliffe?’ she inquired.
‘Well, yes.’ he answered, blushing, and a blush very well became his handsome face; ‘I did perpetrate—— ‘
‘Some mischief, I’ll warrant,’ exclaimed a harsh, disdainful voice. It was that of Mr. Samuel Erin, who had entered the room unobserved. ‘And what was it you perpetrated, sir?’
William Henry looked abashed and annoyed. Margaret, though she stood in no little fear of her uncle, could hardly restrain her indignation. Frank Dennis as usual interposed with the oil can.
‘Your son has perhaps only written a poem, Mr. Erin, which in so young a man can hardly be considered a crime.’
‘I don’t know that, if the poem—as it probably was—was a bad one. If he has committed it’—here the old gentleman’s face softened, as under the influence of the infrequent and home-made joke the grimmest face will do—‘he has doubtless committed it to memory. Come, sir, let us have it.’
Now as, of all the pleasant moments which mitigate this painful life, there are none more charming than those passed in the recital of a poem of our own composition to (one pair of) loving ears, so there are none more embarrassing than those which are occupied in doing the same thing before an unsympathetic audience. Imagine poor Shelley condemned to recite his ‘Skylark’ or Keats his ‘Nightingale’ to a vestry meeting! That would indeed be bad enough; but if the bard himself is conscious that he has no skylark nor nightingale, but only a tomtit or yellowhammer, to let fly for their edification, how much more terrible must be his position! Poor William Henry was in even worse case, for one of his audience, as he well knew, was not only not en rapport with him, but antagonistic, a hostile critic. I once beheld a shivering schoolboy compelled to make an extempore ode to the moon to a circle of his fellow-students armed with towels knotted at the end, to flick him with if his muse should be considered unsatisfactory. Except that he was not in his night-shirt, as my young friend was, poor William Henry’s position was almost as bad, and yet he dared not refuse to obey the paternal mandate.
‘There are only a very few verses, sir,’ he stammered.
‘The fewer the better,’ said Mr. Erin. He meant it for an encouragement, no doubt, a sort of ‘so far the Court is with you,’ but it had not an encouraging effect upon his son. It seemed to him that he had just swallowed a pint of vinegar.