“Well, this young lady, Miss Grace, wants to learn the German language; and they have advertised far and near for a teacher, one who would give two lessons a day, an hour each time, for six months. Now my daughter hinted, that as you were disappointed about the school, you might be more fortunate if you applied to Madam Herman.”
“I certainly should have no objection,” said Arthur; “but I fear that they would require better references than I could give. You see that even my superiority over Mr. Darg was of no use.”
“Oh, you forget the letter; it was that which decided your fate—we must get hold of it somehow. But what I was going to observe is this, you can write a note to Mr. Herman, and offer yourself as a teacher of the German. You can but try—faint heart, the proverb says, never won fair lady; and Grace Gordon is worth the winning. You see, my young friend, that we have sprung over the fence to get sight of a wedding before you have seen the bride.”
So the kind-hearted innkeeper and his family talked the little plot over, and dropped a few words of assurance now and then to Arthur, and when bedtime came he had made up his mind that he would make the attempt, giving such references as were in his power. He had been twice to Berrydale on shooting excursions, and quite won the hearts of Mr. Green’s family, the boys in particular, two of whom accompanied him each time—they were his sworn friends, and were loud in their praises of his good-nature in breaking off his sport to teach them some of the mysteries of the art. Mrs. Green knew Mrs. May, the lady with whom Arthur had boarded for several years, and of course she was well acquainted with every particular of the young man’s life.
“If he has chopped and changed about in out-door business,” said Mrs. May, “he has been constant to me, and when he is not to be found at my house it is because there is not money enough in his purse to pay his board. How he lives till I see him again, I cannot tell, but I ask no questions, and he asks no favors.”
Arthur looked around his peaceful, quiet little room, and at the gentle, harmonious prospect spread before his window, and thought how pleasant it would be to live there forever. He was weary of change—no fault of his, poor fellow—and thought that no office would be beneath him, if there was a possibility of securing a humble retreat like this. And yet Arthur was ambitious in the true sense of the word.
When they sat down to breakfast Mr. Darg was not there, the hostler said he whistled to his dogs at break of day, and walked off with them toward the brook. The horn was sounded and search made, but he came not, and they finished their breakfast without him. Mrs. Green told the girl to keep the coffee hot as he would no doubt soon come in from his ramble, and she went up stairs to attend to her duties. In a few minutes she returned, with a letter directed to Arthur, it had been found under the old man’s pillow, and she stood by while Arthur read it.
“Well,” said he, “this is as singular an adventure as the one at Drizzletown,” and he read out as follows:
“Sir,—I am heartily tired of keeping school already, though I have not yet begun, and so vacate in your favor. If any of your pupils turn out clever fellows, tell them how much cleverer they would have been if I had been their master. I consulted my dogs this morning at break of day, and I am pretty sure they thought the confinement of a kennel quite as irksome and unwholesome as I should teaching thick-headed boys in a forlorn, comfortless school-house. When you go to the city during vacation, you can hear of my whereabouts of Mrs. May, for an old fellow living there, by the name of Crosbie, knows all my concerns. Meantime I ask your acceptance of my shaving-apparatus, it is rather too good for you, but as I heard you ask the innkeeper for a razor, I concluded the present would be acceptable. If you ever get a chance I wish you would spit in the face of that solemn ass Barnes, and call Mr. Herman a fool, for me, will you?
Yours till death,