“Philippa, he knows—perhaps your mind is absent,” she said, as she put the fifth trout on her plate at breakfast one fine morning—“he feels that these little creatures do me good, and to me it becomes a sacred duty to endeavor to eat them.”
“You seem to succeed very well, Eliza.”
“Yes, dear, I manage to get on a little, from a sort of sporting feeling that appeals to me. Before I begin to lift the skins of any of these little darlings, I can see my dear boy standing over the torrent, with his wonderful boldness, and bright eagle eyes—”
“To pull out a fish of an ounce and a half. Without any disrespect to Pet, whose fishing apparel has cost 20 pounds, I believe that Jordas catches every one of them.”
Sad to say, this was even so; Lancelot tried once or twice, for some five minutes at a time, throwing the fly as he threw a skittle-ball; but finding no fish at once respond to his precipitance, down he cast the rod, and left the rest of it to Jordas. But inasmuch as he brought back fish whenever he went out fishing, and looked as brilliant and picturesque as a salmon-fly, in his new costume, his mother was delighted, and his aunt, being full of fresh troubles, paid small heed to him.
For as soon as the roads became safe again, and an honest attorney could enter “horse hire” in his bill without being too chivalrous, and the ink that had clotted in the good-will time began to form black blood again, Mr. Jellicorse himself resolved legitimately to set forth upon a legal enterprise. The winter had shaken him slightly—for even a solicitor's body is vulnerable; and well for the clerk of the weather it is that no action lies against him—and his good wife told him to be very careful, although he looked as young as ever. She had no great opinion of the people he was going to, and was sure that they would be too high and mighty even to see that his bed was aired. For her part, she hoped that the reports were true which were now getting into every honest person's mouth; and if he would listen to a woman's common-sense, and at once go over to the other side, it would serve them quite right, and be the better for his family, and give a good lift to his profession. But his honesty was stout, and vanquished even his pride in his profession.
CHAPTER L
PRINCELY TREATMENT
“This, then, is what you have to say,” cried my lady Philippa, in a tone of little gratitude, and perhaps not purely free from wrath; “this is what has happened, while you did nothing?”