The MS. in a Red Box

by John A. Hamilton

"I have no inducement to visit the settlement while you are at the vicarage, which is a much more fitting abode for you than a hut at Sandtoft."

"So Mrs. Graves will have it, and in her kindness would detain me here I know not how long; but my place is with my father, and he is by agreement physician to the settlers. You are not to think that my father brought me thoughtlessly to Sandtoft."

How beautiful she looked as she bent forward, her face aglow with love and pride!

"He is not so much absorbed in science as to forget his care for his daughter. Oh no, indeed! He would have had me stay in Leyden, when he fled. He entreated, almost commanded me to go to the care of friends in Amsterdam, when he left Paris, and to remain there until he had a suitable home for me in England. But what is home? Do masons and carpenters make it? For me, it is where my father lives. My mother died in my seventh year, and my father did his utmost to make up my loss. His grief made him an old man before his time: his days were filled with labour, and the most learned and polished society in Europe made claim on his leisure, but nothing was allowed to interfere with his tender care of his little daughter. He continued his great love for his wife in his love for her motherless child. Pardon me that I say all this, but I could not bear that you should misconstrue my father."

I forgot to answer, looking up with pure delight into the beaming eyes. Surely, she cared something for me, unworthy as I was, since she wished that I should respect her father as he deserved. At length I replied softly—

"I count it great honour that you have told me."

But my new reverence for Doctor Goel was instantly in danger, for he came up to us, a cabbage-leaf in one hand and his magnifying-glass in the other, and pointed out something to his daughter in great excitement. He turned to me while she looked, and plunged into English, of which I reproduce the sense, not the exact words—

"Your great Bacon thought that caterpillars were engendered of dew and leaves by putrefaction. But it is not so. They come from eggs, laid by the butterfly. It is one more instance to confirm the theory that every living thing derives its being from a parent."

And the old gentleman rubbed his hands and smiled, as if he had found a diamond. 'Twas all I could do to refrain from laughing at this ado about some tiny caterpillars on a cabbage-leaf, but Mistress Goel seemed to enter into her father's pleasure, and, to my astonishment, said something to him in Latin, as if quoting a book, to which he replied by a long sentence in the same language. Then he returned to the harness-room, taking his precious cabbage-leaf with him.

Happily, the clang of the dinner-bell called us into the house, and saved me from uttering my opinion on the value of studying grubs. After dinner, during which nothing was said which needs record here, the vicar withdrew to his study, the doctor to the harness-room, where he smoked his pipe, my aunt to her room for her customary nap, so Mistress Goel and I strolled round the garden. Somehow, I was led on to talk of myself, a topic on which I was fluent, not to say vapouring. I confided to the lady the dubious state of the Vavasour fortunes, and spoke of retrieving them by the sword. I more than half hinted at my father's project for the relief of our estate, and of difference between him and me on that account. In fine, I was autobiographical, sentimental, braggart. The patient hearing, the gentle glance, the sweet smile on my companion's lips lured me on to talk as I had never talked before. Little did I dream that I was pouring out my boyish crudities to one of the most accomplished women of the Netherlands, the bosom friend of Tesselschade Visscher, a distinguished member of the brilliant circle who made the Visscher salon famous throughout Europe. Happy in my ignorance, young bumpkin that I was, I babbled on, and she listened and answered as simply as any rustic damsel. I longed to tell her how I loved her, but held myself in check, remembering that I might be disinherited to-morrow, and what a poor heritage at best mine was like to be. Longed! I ached with longing. And when I thought of Sheffield, it was as though my head and heart would burst, so full I was with jealousy and rage. What I might have said, if we had been left alone awhile longer, I do not know, but my aunt came out to join us, and she stuck like a leech. I sauntered to the harness-room, where the doctor sat, smoking his pipe, and fell into talk with him. His English improved as we conversed, and I got the notion that he had once used the tongue with freedom. He asked questions about our farming, the trees and herbs in the fenny soil, the birds and beasts of our woods and marshes. He told me curious things of the weeds spread upon a rough table before him—some too marvellous for belief, but I kept my countenance. He had been seeking glow-worms, and I told him where they were to be found. I asked him questions concerning some things which had puzzled me, and received answers full and plain. He grew very friendly, and our talk lasted until supper-time.