Here he was interrupted by his nephew, Tom Clarke, who had disappeared at the knight’s first entrance, and now produced himself with an eagerness in his look, while the tears stared in his eyes.—“Lord bless my soul!” cried he, “I know that gentleman, and his servant, as well as I know my own father!—I am his own godson, uncle; he stood for me when he was a boy—yes, indeed, sir, my father was steward to the estate—I may say I was bred up in the family of Sir Everhard Greaves, who has been dead these two years—this is the only son, Sir Launcelot; the best-natured, worthy, generous gentleman—I care not who knows it. I love him as well as if he was my own flesh and blood.”
At this period, Tom, whose heart was of the melting mood, began to sob and weep plenteously, from pure affection. Crowe, who was not very subject to these tendernesses, d—-ed him for a chicken-hearted lubber; repeating, with much peevishness, “What dost cry for? what dost cry for, noddy?” The surgeon, impatient to know the story of Sir Launcelot, which he had heard imperfectly recounted, begged that Mr. Clarke would compose himself, and relate it as circumstantially as his memory would retain the particulars; and Tom, wiping his eyes, promised to give him that satisfaction; which the reader, if he be so minded, may partake in the next chapter.
CHAPTER THREE
WHICH THE READER, ON PERUSAL, MAY WISH WERE CHAPTER THE LAST.
The doctor prescribed a repetatur of the julep, and mixed the ingredients, secundum artem; Tom Clarke hemmed thrice, to clear his pipes; while the rest of the company, including Dolly and her mother, who had by this time administered to the knight, composed themselves into earnest and hushed attention. Then the young lawyer began his narrative to this effect:—
“I tell ye what, gemmen, I don’t pretend in this here case to flourish and harangue like a—having never been called to—but what of that, d’ye see? perhaps I may know as much as—facts are facts, as the saying is.—I shall tell, repeat, and relate a plain story—matters of fact, d’ye see, without rhetoric, oratory, ornament, or embellishment; without repetition, tautology, circumlocution, or going about the bush; facts which I shall aver, partly on the testimony of my own knowledge, and partly from the information of responsible evidences of good repute and credit, any circumstance known to the contrary notwithstanding.—For as the law saith, if so be as how there is an exception to evidence, that exception is in its nature but a denial of what is taken to be good by the other party, and exceptio in non exceptis, firmat regulam, d’ye see. —But howsomever, in regard to this here affair, we need not be so scrupulous as if we were pleading before a judge sedente curia.”
Ferret, whose curiosity was rather more eager than that of any other person in this audience, being provoked by this preamble, dashed the pipe he had just filled in pieces against the grate; and after having pronounced the interjection pish! with an acrimony of aspect altogether peculiar to himself, “If,” said he, “impertinence and folly were felony by the statute, there would be no warrant of unexceptionable evidence to hang such an eternal babbler.” “Anan, babbler!” cried Tom, reddening with passion, and starting up; “I’d have you to know, sir, that I can bite as well as babble; and that, if I am so minded, I can run upon the foot after my game without being in fault, as the saying is; and, which is more, I can shake an old fox by the collar.”
How far this young lawyer might have proceeded to prove himself staunch on the person of the misanthrope, if he had not been prevented, we shall not determine; but the whole company were alarmed at his looks and expressions. Dolly’s rosy cheeks assumed an ash colour, while she ran between the disputants, crying, “Naay, naay—vor the love of God doan’t then, doan’t then!” But Captain Crowe exerted a parental authority over his nephew, saying, “Avast, Tom, avast!—Snug’s the word—we’ll have no boarding, d’ye see.—Haul forward thy chair again, take thy berth, and proceed with thy story in a direct course, without yawing like a Dutch yanky.”
Tom, thus tutored, recollected himself, resumed his seat, and, after some pause, plunged at once into the current of narration. “I told you before, gemmen, that the gentleman in armour was the only son of Sir Everhard Greaves, who possessed a free estate of five thousand a year in our country, and was respected by all his neighbours as much for his personal merit as for his family fortune. With respect to his son Launcelot, whom you have seen, I can remember nothing until he returned from the university, about the age of seventeen, and then I myself was not more than ten years old. The young gemman was at that time in mourning for his mother; though, God knows, Sir Everhard had more cause to rejoice than to be afflicted at her death:—for, among friends” (here he lowered his voice, and looked round the kitchen), “she was very whimsical, expensive, ill-tempered, and, I’m afraid, a little—upon the— flightly order—a little touched or so;—but mum for that—the lady is now dead; and it is my maxim, de mortuis nil nisi bonum. The young squire was even then very handsome, and looked remarkably well in his weepers; but he had an awkward air and shambling gait, stooped mortally, and was so shy and silent that he would not look a stranger in the face, nor open his mouth before company. Whenever he spied a horse or carriage at the gate, he would make his escape into the garden, and from thence into the park; where many is the good time and often he has been found sitting under a tree, with a book in his hand, reading Greek, Latin, and other foreign linguas.