I suspect, rejoined the other, I may appear to you more inquisitive than I ought to be; but I beg leave to say in my own defence that I was particularly referred to you by Sir David himself.
Sir David could not have referred you to a more unfit man: I am as ignorant of my own father’s estate as I am of Sir David’s, and of Sir David’s as I am of your’s.
Why then, sir, I must pay a visit to Penruth myself; for I have my father’s strict commands to obtain information of every particular necessary for him to know relative to Sir David Ap Owen, who, I must now tell you, has made proposals to us for marrying my sister.
Yes, and to me, said Philip, for marrying his mother; you see therefore it is a family-affair between us, and though I have not a single syllable to offer why Sir David’s marriage with your sister should not take place, I confess it would not break my heart if mine with his mother was put off for ever. Now, sir, if you are bound to England, I can truly say, I wish I were going with you; but if you meditate a visit to Penruth Abbey, where there is nobody to receive you, I most earnestly recommend it to you to turn aside and go to Kray Castle, where my father and his family will be happy to see you, and where you may do me a singular piece of service, if you will take charge of this letter, which I have just been writing, and deliver it privately to my son, whilst I will trouble you to be the bearer of a few lines to my good and worthy father, simply to let him know how respectable a visitor I shall have the honour to introduce to him, when you are pleased to avail yourself of his well known hospitality.
Sir, replied Devereux, I am setting off for England in to-morrow’s pacquet. Of your letter to your son I will take faithful charge, and deliver it to him in the manner you prescribe. I also thankfully embrace your very kind offer of introducing me to your father, of whose high character for worth and honour I am not uninformed; whilst I must own there is a mysterious kind of cloud about Sir David Ap Owen, through which I am not able perfectly to see my way; for I find him totally unknown to our British envoy here, and have not heard him say what brings him and the lady, to whom it seems you are engaged, into this country, having so lately succeeded to a great situation and establishment in his own. With respect to his proposed connection with my family, I must beg to say, that although we reside here in the character and capacity of merchants, we have nevertheless such pretensions on the score of noble birth and property by no means inconsiderable, as give us a perfect right to use every honorable precaution for knowing whom we are to receive into our alliance, provided the gentleman, who proposes, shall prove acceptable to us as well as to my sister; on whom nothing has been sparingly bestowed, that either nature could give or education improve.
This being said, what further passed is not important to relate. Philip wrote a short letter to his father, and having delivered it, and his secret pacquet, to Mr. Devereux, took his leave of him, and as he grasped his hand with a sensation, rarely, if ever, felt by him before, he sent from his sad heart a longing sigh towards his beloved native country, which fate, that had doomed him never more to visit it but as a corpse, gave to the winds, that dispersed it on its passage.
CHAPTER V.
Another Soliloquy of Mr. Philip De Lancaster. Our History returns to the Family at Kray Castle.
When the Irish tailor, who had been a journeyman botcher in London, and was now become a master of journeymen botchers in Lisbon, had invested the well-made person of Mr. Philip De Lancaster in an ill-made suit of rotten black, the mourning bridegroom elect, having paid the bill and dismissed the bill-maker, examined himself in the glass, and thus, as was customary with him, mournfully soliloquized—
“Luckless man that I am, must I put aside this habit on my wedding-day? Wherefore; on what pretence; I have undergone that ceremony once already, and by experience can more than guess to what sad hours that ceremony leads. Marriage, by high authority denominated honourable, is, through perversion of its purposes, to many become disgraceful, burdensome to most, and a blessing, as I verily believe, to few, if any, who know how to compute what is a blessing, and what is their bane. There are indeed a few soft silly things amongst the mass of female spinsters, that a man, who knows the value of their ignorance, might possibly with proper care prevent from growing wiser; but a widow—(Oh my hapless fortune, Rachel Owen is a widow—) who can keep in ignorance? Not I; not any man.
“Her eyes, her air, her action, every movement and every word prognosticate sagacity, that will not be deceived: then what a pipe? Good Heaven, if that voice, which is so shrill whilst only warbling Spanish tonadillas, that to me are unintelligible, shall be roused to exert itself in plain English argumentation, farewel to all repose! nor peace, nor quiet shall I ever know. How am I sure she is not a Jewess? She may, for aught that I can tell, be lineally descended from that wicked king, who put to death all the innocents; and if so, how shall I escape? Happy Devereux, he is on the seas: would I were on them too, or under them, rather than what I may be, aye, and shall be if that sharp-eyed widow sets her wits to work. I begin to think I made a wrong choice, and should have taken my chance of turning out with the son, rather than of turning in where I shall have no chance at all. There seems nothing left for me but to fall extremely sick, and that I may really be so without feigning, I will instantly call in a Portuguese physician, and (which is more than any patient less desperate will promise) I am resolute to take his physic. Ah, where is my good friend and countryman Llewellyn? My poor wife followed his prescriptions, and behold! here am I in his livery, black as the hands of man can make me. Ah Llewellyn, Llewellyn, in Wales it was quite enough for me to endure your company; I never wished to be your patient till now that I am in Lisbon, and under sentence of a dose more bitter and against my palate than you ever mixed—But what if John De Lancaster should come upon my call? There would be a champion worthy of my cause: Glendowr’s magic could not conjure up a braver or a stouter spirit. He is young, not married, not, like me, bent to the yoke, but free, untrammeled and untamed. I’ll cherish hope; I’ll feed upon the thought that my brave boy will come, and vex myself no more.”