The Profession of Faith.
‘Indeed, uncle, I am not so audacious as to propound objections. There was one thing, however, that seemed to me a little incomprehensible.’
‘Possibly, my dear,’ he said, with a smile of contemptuous good-nature, which seemed to add, ‘I am not so rude as to say “probably.”’
He took his elbows off the MS., though he still hovered above it (like the chicken) while she ran her dainty finger over it, taking care, however, not to touch the paper.
‘Ah! here it is, “As snowe from the leffee tree.” Now, considering that snow falls in winter when the trees are bare, don’t you think the word should have been “leafless?”’
‘An ordinary person would no doubt have written “leafless,”’ admitted Mr. Erin—an ingenious observation enough, since, in the first place, it suggested that an extraordinary genius could have done nothing of the kind, and secondly, it demanded no rejoinder; it gave the antiquary time to cast about him for some line of defence. He produced his microscope and examined the word with great intentness, but it was ‘leffee’ and not ‘leafless’ beyond all doubt. ‘It is probable,’ he presently observed, ‘that Shakespeare’s minute attention to nature may have caused him, when writing these most interesting words, to have a particular tree in his mind; when, indeed, we consider the topic on which he was writing—death—what is more likely than that his thoughts should have reverted to some churchyard yew? Now the yew, my child, is an evergreen.’
Here Frank Dennis’s well-known voice was heard in the little hall without. He must have started for London, therefore, on the instant that he received Margaret’s letter. Her heart had foreboded that it would be so, notwithstanding the pains she had taken to make it appear otherwise; she knew that it was her wish that had summoned him, and that he had been sent for, as it were, under false pretences. Much as she esteemed him, she would have preferred the appearance of any one else, however indifferent, such as Mr. Reginald Talbot.
Strange to say, Mr. Samuel Erin, though it was at his own express desire that Frank Dennis had been invited, was just at that moment of the same way of thinking as his niece. If that little difficulty about the epithet, ‘leffee,’ had not occurred, all would have been well. This new discovery of the Confession, had it been flawless, must needs have converted the most confirmed of sceptics, and, in his crowning triumph, he would have forgiven the young fellow all his former doubts; but, though to the eye of faith this little flaw was of no consequence, it would certainly give occasion not only for the ungodly to blaspheme—for that they would do in any case—but to the waverer to cling to his doubts. If, on the spur of the moment, Mr. Erin could have explained the matter to his own satisfaction, he would have felt no qualms, but he was secretly conscious that that theory of the evergreen tree would not hold water. It might satisfy a modest inquirer like Margaret, but a hard-headed, unimaginative fellow like Frank Dennis would not be so easily convinced.