My father could not stand it longer. "Oh, may Cromwell's curse light upon her! I wonder how many glasses of brandy-and-water she swallows at evening exercise, as she calls it, over a chapter of Timothy?"
"'I would not recall the past, but for the purpose of wholesome admonition. The year before you married, and gave up the godless life of soldiering, can you forget that I found you, at one in the morning in Bridget Donovan's room? Your reason was, that you had got the colic; if you had, why not come to my chamber, where you knew there was laudanum and lavender?
Poor Constance could not stand the fresh allegation; and, while my mother looked very grave, we laughed, as Scrub says, "consumedly." My father muttered something about "cursed nonsense!" but I am inclined to think that aunt Catharine's colic charge was not without some foundation.
"'I have now, James, discharged my duty: may my humble attempts to arouse you to a sense of the danger of standing on the brink of the pit of perdition be blessed! Pay the principal and interest over to La Touche. Mr. Selby Sly hinted that a foreclosure of the mortgage might expedite matters; and, by saving a term or two in getting in the money, two or three hundred New Zealanders would—and oh, James! how gratifying would be the reflection!—be saved from the wrath to come.
"'This morning, on looking over your marriage settlement, Mr. Sly is of opinion that, if Mrs. Hamilton will renounce certain rights he can raise the money at once, and that too only at legal interest, say six per cent.—'"
Often had I witnessed a paternal explosion; but, when it was hinted that the marital rights of my poor mother were to be sacrificed, his fury amounted almost to madness.
"Damnation!" he exclaimed; "confusion light upon the letter and the letter-writer! You!—do you an act to invalidate your settlement! I would see first every canting vagabond in——" and he named a disagreeable locality. "Never, Mary! pitch that paper away: I dread that at the end of it the old lunatic will inflict her benediction. Frank, pack your traps—you must catch the mail to-night; you'll be in town by eight o'clock to-morrow morning. Be at Sly's office at nine. D——n the gout!—I should have done the job myself. Beat the scoundrel as nearly to death as you think you can conscientiously go without committing absolute murder: next, pay a morning visit to Kettlewell, and, if you leave him in a condition to mount the pulpit for a month, I'll never acknowledge you. Break that other seal; Probably, the contents may prove as agreeable as old Kitty's."
There were times and moods when, in Byron's language, it was judicious to reply "Psha! to hear is to obey," and this was such a period. I broke the black wax, and the epistle proved to be from the very gentleman whom I was to be dispatched per mail to qualify next morning for surgical assistance.
"Out with it!" roared my father, as I unclosed the foldings of the paper; "What is the signature? I remember that my uncle Hector always looked at the name attached to a letter when he unclosed the post-bag; and if the handwriting looked like an attorney's he flung it, without reading a line, into the fire."
"This letter, sir, is subscribed 'Selby Sly.'"