And upon this assurance William Maubray proceeded to state his case, and feeling relieved as he poured forth his wrongs, waxed voluble; and the doctor sat and heard, looking like Solomon, and refreshing his lips now and again, as if William’s oration parched them.
“And what, Sir, do you think I had best do?” said William, not very wisely it must be owned, applying to Philip, certainly not sober—for judgment.
“Return to my duty?” repeated William, interpreting as well as he could the doctor’s somewhat vague articulation. “Why, I am certain I never left it. I have done all I could to please her; but this you know is what no one on earth could be expected to do—what no one ought to do.”
“Wrong, sh’r!” exclaimed the doctor with decision. “Thersh—r—r—right, and th’rsh wrong—r—ry—an’ wrong—moshe admira’l ladle, Mish Perfeck!—moshe amiable; we all appresheay—sheniorib—bush pie—ri—pie—oribush—ole Latt’n, you know. I ’preshiay an’ love Mish Perfey.”
Senioribus prioribus. There was a want of clearness, William felt, in the doctor’s views; still it weighed on him that such as they were they were against him.
“The principle on which I have acted, Sir, can’t be shaken. If I were, at my aunt’s desire, now to enter the Church, I should do so entirely from worldly motives, which I know would be an impiety such as I could not endure to practise.”
“Conn’ry toop—toop—prinsh’p’l—connr’y—conn’ry,” murmured the doctor, with an awful shake to his head.
The coach was now seen to pass the windows, with a couple of outside passengers, and a pile of luggage on top, and pulled up some sixty yards lower down the street, at the Golden Posts. With a hasty shake of the hand, William Maubray took his leave, and mounted to his elevated seat, as the horses, with their looped traces hanging by them, emerged from the inn-yard gate, like shadows, by the rapid sleight-of-hand of groom and hostler—to replace the wayworn team, now snorting and shaking their flanks, with drooping necks, and emitting a white steam in the moonlight, as they waited to be led off to rest and comfort in the stables of the Golden Posts.
