Oh! they were nice people were the Potts's—father, mother, and daughters; and how delighted Frank was when he sate down to the dinner-table with them—never were such nice people, thought Frank—and he wasn't far wide of the mark either. And how disconsolate poor Vernon felt in being compelled to rough it all alone, for that day at least, upon water-gruel above stairs! But the ladies, taking compassion upon his forlorn condition, and sympathizing with him for the dangers he had past, left the table very early, and favoured him with their company, leaving the squire below to amuse friend Frank.
But the squire and Frank were not left long alone together, for the village doctor dropped in just as the ladies had departed to inquire how Vernon was getting on, and was easily prevailed upon to help the squire and his guest out with their wine; and then came the clergyman of the parish, and his three or four private pupils, who had come to finish letting off the fireworks, which they had favoured the squire with partially exhibiting on the previous evening; but which the news of Vernon's misadventure had prematurely cut short—and so the remainder of the exhibition was postponed to the following evening—and that time having then arrived, all the rest of the combustibles went off, one after another, with very great eclat.
But where are those three uninteresting young damsels all this time?—What has become of them? some of our readers may be inclined to ask. For their satisfaction we beg to inform them, that these three unprepossessing personages were merely acquaintances, who had dropped in unexpectedly the evening before, and made use of the squire's residence as a kind of inn or half-way house, on the way to visit some friends some ten miles further on, to which place they had betaken themselves soon after breakfast. And by way of clearing up as we go—The Misses Potts, (for Potts they were called, there's no disguising that fact,) the Misses Potts, we say, were at the time our two heroes first met them returning homewards from a long ride; shortly after which, being overtaken by a heavy shower, they betook themselves to a friend's house not very far distant, where, owing to the unfavourable appearance of the weather, they were induced to remain for the night, and Timothy was accordingly sent home with a message to that effect.
They were very nice people indeed were the Potts's; and not only did their two guests think so, but the whole country, far and wide around, entertained precisely the same opinion. It is not, therefore, surprising that two young men like Frank and Vernon should be well pleased with their quarters, or that, having so early gotten into the slough of love, they should daily continue to sink deeper into the mire. The young poet's lame leg, though not a very serious affair, was still sufficient to keep him for several days a close prisoner to the house; but if any one had asked him—no, we don't go so far as to say that, for if any one had so asked him he would not have answered truly; but if he had seriously proposed the question to himself, his heart would have told him, that notwithstanding all the pain and inconvenience attendant on his then crippled state, he wouldn't have changed with his friend Frank, to have been compelled to ramble abroad with the father, instead of remaining at home to enjoy the society of his daughters.
As for Frank, he was equally well pleased to let matters be as they were; he shot with the squire, accompanied him on his walks about his farm; and occasionally, when the weather permitted, attended the young ladies in their rides; and then, and then only, did Vernon envy him, or repine at his own lame and helpless condition. But whatever the opinion of the latter might have been, never in all his born days did Mr Frank Trevelyan spend his time so much to his satisfaction.
Now we must not suppose that Squire Potts had, like an old blockhead, admitted these two young men into such close terms of intimacy with his family, upon no further acquaintance than was furnished him by his having helped the one out of a lead shaft, and the other to a dry rig-out after the duckings he had encountered in seeking the necessary aid—quite the contrary; for though the nature of the accident, and the forlorn condition of our pedestrians, would have insured them both food and shelter till the patient could have been safely removed elsewhere; yet the squire would never have admitted any one to the society of the female part of his family, whose respectability and station in society he was at all doubtful about. He had therefore, during supper-time on the night of his arrival, but in polite manner, put several pumping questions to Frank, who very readily answered them; from which he discovered that Frank's father, though personally unacquainted with, he knew by reputation to be a highly respectable person and a county magistrate; nor was even Frank's name wholly unknown to him, and the little he had heard was highly in his favour. He, therefore, passed muster very well; and, during the course of the shooting expedition on the following morning, the squire had also contrived to elicit from his young companion, that Vernon Wycherley's father, who had died some years before, had been both an intimate and valued friend of his own early years.
By this means a great portion of the reserve, often attendant upon an acquaintance recently formed, wore off; so that our two heroes felt themselves, in the course of a few days, as much at home with their newly-made friends, as if they had been on terms of intimacy with them from their childhood. There was, however, one serious drawback to the poet's felicity. The comedy upon which he had designed to establish his future fame, was nowhere to be found; and there was every reason to believe, that it was reposing in the shaft from which its author had been so providentially rescued, where no one would venture down to seek it on account of the foul air that was known to prevail near the bottom.
"Well, never mind," said Vernon, who, when informed of his probable loss, was reclining very comfortably on the drawing-room sofa, taking tea with his kind entertainers,—"Well, never mind," he said, "I must be thankful to Heaven for my own preservation, and, practising a little of friend Frank's philosophy, try to believe that what has happened is all for the best."
"And so I've no doubt it is," interposed Frank; "for you must either have been doomed to disappointment by your failure, or, if you had succeeded in being the fortunate competitor out of the hundred candidates who are striving for the prize, you would, as a matter of course, have incurred the everlasting enmity of the disappointed ninety-nine, to say nothing of their numerous friends and allies; why, you would be cut up to minced meat amongst them all; and nine-tenths of the reviews and newspapers would be ringing their changes of abuse upon your name, as one of the most blundering blockheads that ever spoilt paper."
"Enough, Frank, enough—I give in," interrupted Mr Wycherley; "quite enough said on the subject, and perhaps you may be right too in this instance; but I verily believe, that if the direst misfortune were to happen to one, you would strive to convince him, or at any rate set it down in our own mind, that it was all for the best."