“What a calm and beautiful night!” he resumed; “it takes one out of one’s self almost. It makes our sorrows seem so small.”
He might have talked like this for an hour, without any effect of that sort on me; if he had not finished with a heavy sigh, in spite of all the solace of the scene. Then I knew that he referred to his own grief, which was a dark and bitter one. He had lost his wife, just before he came to us; and now it was said that his only child, a graceful girl of about fifteen, was pining away with some mysterious illness, and would take no food. And he, an old man of threescore and five, of feeble frame and requiring care, must finish his earthly course alone, poor, and forlorn, and with none to love him.
“I hope Miss Bessy is a little better,” I said very softly; for I felt rebuked in my health and strength, by a grief like this.
“No, I fear not. She fancies nothing. As I came back from visiting poor Nanny Page, I saw some fine mushrooms in the footpath field, and it struck me that possibly my child would like them; though they are not very nourishing or wholesome food. But if we could get her to eat anything—and I have a special style of cooking them. But it was nearly dark when I gathered them, and I scarcely know the true from the poisonous. I was going to ask Dr. Sippets, but I fear he would forbid them altogether. You could do me a great favour, if you would. Just to look these over for me.”
This I undertook with the greatest pleasure, and asked him to come to my cottage for the purpose, where we could procure a light. And I was pleased that he did not in any way attempt to “talk goody,” as our people call it, nor even refer to my lonely condition; though I knew by the softness of his manner that it was present to his mind. The reverend gentleman had collected his booty in too Catholic a spirit, mingling with the true Agaric some very fine “horse-mushrooms,” and even one or two poisonous toadstools. Having packed all the good ones in a tidy punnet, which looked more enticing than his handkerchief, I carried them for him to his own door, and obtained leave to call on the morrow, and ask whether the young lady had been tempted.
My Uncle Corny was one of that vast majority of good Britons, which can never forbear the most obvious joke, even when it is least attractive. The most fastidious people in the world could scarcely call him “vulgar,”—which used to be a favourite word with them—because he could let them call him what they liked, and be none the worse for it. They might just as well blame a dog for loving liver, or a cat for believing that heaven is milk, as fall foul of my Uncle Corny, because he ate the onions of very common jokes. He liked to make a laugh; and when he failed, he perceived that the fault was upon the other side.
“I thought of a capital thing,” he told me, “when I was half awake last night, for I never sleep now as I used to do. If you go on like this, you’ll have to answer to the parish for it. What right have you to change our parson’s name?”
I saw by the wag of his nose that he was inditing of some cumbrous joke; and I let him take his time about it.
“How slow you are! Can’t you see, Kit, his proper name is Golightly; and you are making him go heavily. Well, never mind. I can’t expect you to see anything just now. I suppose you never mean to laugh again.”
“Certainly not at such stuff as that. What am I doing to disturb him?”