The MS. in a Red Box

by John A. Hamilton

That supper would have been a right pleasant meal but for one thing. The room was gay with vine-leaves, green boughs, and bunches of roses in jars and vases. Never had I seen it so gracefully decked, and I knew whose handiwork it was. My aunt had skill in providing, as the table bore witness, set out with well-cooked poultry, tench, salmon, plovers' eggs, dainty tarts, and amber-coloured ale and French and Spanish wine, but the adornment of the table and the room was new and strange. When the doctor and I entered the room, "my Lord Arrogance" stood at the other end, bending reverentially to listen to the vicar's talk, He made his bow to the doctor, and we took our seats—Sheffield at Mrs. Graves' right hand, Mistress Goel next him, the doctor and I on the other side of the table.

Sheffield talked with the Goels of Brederoo's Farce of the Cow, and of some tragedy by Vondel. He applauded the genius and enterprise of Doctor Samuel Coster, and praised to the skies the Sisters Roemer Visscher. It was in listening to this conversation that I discovered how intimate Mistress Goel was with those learned and beautiful ladies. The playwrights and poets of Amsterdam and Leyden were quite unknown to me, and to the vicar and my aunt; but Sheffield contrived to interest Mrs. Graves by condescending to explain to her, and appealing to her taste and judgment, and he pleased his host by a sentence now and then in which he implied that these topics were far beneath the altitude of his sacred learning. I imagined that Sheffield designed to expose my clownish ignorance in contrast with his knowledge of the literature of the Netherlands; but his evident anxiety to keep the direction of the conversation in his own hands, and an exchange of glances between father and daughter, as if some remark of his tickled them to the point of laughter, made me aware that his lordship did but repeat a lesson with which he had been stuffed for the occasion. In a little time he had taken a good deal of wine, and then he did me the honour to become aware of my presence.

"I' faith," said he, "'tis uncourteous to Vavasour to talk only of divine poesy. Does line fetch a good price this year?"

The inquiry was addressed to me, but before I could answer, Mistress Goel shot me a question—

"What did you say was the motto of Sir William Vavasour?"

I had said nothing of a motto peculiar to this ancestor of mine, and could not at once see the drift of the query. Then I perceived that it was meant to stay the anger which had sent the hot blood into my face, and I answered her with the first jingle I could remember.

Soon after sunset thick clouds gathered, cutting short the twilight, and candles were brought in. Then my aunt prayed Mistress Goel to sing, and I learned what ineffable delight may be in music, for the singer had the art-concealing art, and sang as the thrushes and nightingales do. The old spinet became another instrument under the touch of her fingers. I sat entranced, listening to song after song, watching the singing with devouring eyes. To my wonder the songs were chiefly English, and some of them the simple ballads dear to peasant-folk. By-and-by Mrs. Graves asked for "that Spanish duetto," which she had heard Sheffield sing with her guest, and he condescended to gratify her. 'Twas a concert of crow and nightingale, but the fellow tugged at his collar, and stuck up his chin, and wriggled about, as if his performance had been the finest in the world.

During the last hour the low rumble of distant thunder had been heard, and just as the Spanish song ended, there came a flash of lightning, and a tremendous peal of thunder immediately followed, loud enough to be the crack of doom. My aunt began a great fuss about having no bed to offer me, and the necessity of my going home before the storm grew worse, and I was in a manner forced out of the house. So I made my adieux, promising the doctor some glow-worms in a day or two. As I bade Mistress Goel good night I thought her little hand trembled, and there was a look in the brown eyes which I chose to interpret as concern for my safety.

On first setting off, Trueboy was uneasy, the lightning becoming frequent and the thunder almost continuous, but a firm rein and a little soothing brought him to composure.

I have never seen lightning more splendid. At every flash a fire seemed to run along the ground before me, and the water on either side glared redly, while quite distant trees showed, or appeared to show, their every leaf. Near Hirst Priory, some cattle and horses, which had leaped the fences in their panic, were scampering to and fro on the causey like mad creatures, running great risk of bogging themselves in the swampy margins of the road. It would have been unneighbourly to pass on and leave Farmer Brewer's bestial to their fate, so I opened the gate of the drift, and then gathered and drove all I could see into their owner's grounds. It was slow and difficult work, the beasts being so wild with fear, and the only light that of the flashes which followed one another for some seconds without intermission, the succeeding darkness bringing me to a stand; but at length it was done. Then I battered and bawled at the door of the hind's cottage. He opened after some minutes, and stood quaking and shaking like a man in an ague-fit.