“And pray, sir, who was Count Borulawski?” asks Madam.
“He was a nobleman high in favour with his Polish Majesty,” replies Mr. Lee. “May I ask you, madam, to present me to your distinguished son?”
“This is Sir George Warrington,” says my mother, pointing to me.
“Pardon me, madam. I meant Captain Warrington, who was by Mr. Wolfe's side when he died. I had been contented to share his fate, so I had been near him.”
And the ardent Lee swaggers up to Harry, and takes his hand with respect, and pays him a compliment or two, which makes me, at least, pardon him for his late impertinence; for my dearest Hal walks gloomily through his mother's rooms in his old uniform of the famous corps which he has quitted.
We had had many meetings, which the stern mother could not interrupt, and in which that instinctive love which bound us to one another, and which nothing could destroy, had opportunity to speak. Entirely unlike each other in our pursuits, our tastes, our opinions—his life being one of eager exercise, active sport, and all the amusements of the field, while mine is to dawdle over books and spend my time in languid self-contemplation—we have, nevertheless, had such a sympathy as almost passes the love of women. My poor Hal confessed as much to me, for his part, in his artless manner, when we went away without wives or womankind, except a few negroes left in the place, and passed a week at Castlewood together.
The ladies did not love each other. I know enough of my Lady Theo, to see after a very few glances whether or not she takes a liking to another of her amiable sex. All my powers of persuasion or command fail to change the stubborn creature's opinion. Had she ever said a word against Mrs. This or Miss That? Not she! Has she been otherwise than civil? No, assuredly! My Lady Theo is polite to a beggar-woman, treats her kitchenmaids like duchesses, and murmurs a compliment to the dentist for his elegant manner of pulling her tooth out. She would black my boots, or clean the grate, if I ordained it (always looking like a duchess the while); but as soon as I say to her, “My dear creature, be fond of this lady, or t'other!” all obedience ceases; she executes the most refined curtseys; smiles and kisses even to order; but performs that mysterious undefinable freemasonic signal, which passes between women, by which each knows that the other hates her. So, with regard to Fanny, we had met at her house, and at others. I remembered her affectionately from old days, I fully credited poor Hal's violent protests and tearful oaths, that, by George, it was our mother's persecution which made him marry her. He couldn't stand by and see a poor thing tortured as she was, without coming to her rescue; no, by heavens, he couldn't! I say I believed all this; and had for my sister-in-law a genuine compassion, as well as an early regard; and yet I had no love to give her; and, in reply to Hal's passionate outbreaks in praise of her beauty and worth, and eager queries to me whether I did not think her a perfect paragon? I could only answer with faint compliments or vague approval, feeling all the while that I was disappointing my poor ardent fellow, and cursing inwardly that revolt against flattery and falsehood into which I sometimes frantically rush. Why should I not say, “Yes dear Hal, thy wife is a paragon; her singing is delightful, her hair and shape are beautiful;” as I might have said by a little common stretch of politeness? Why could I not cajole this or that stupid neighbour or relative, as I have heard Theo do a thousand times, finding all sorts of lively prattle to amuse them, whilst I sit before them dumb and gloomy? I say it was a sin not to have more words to say in praise of Fanny. We ought to have praised her, we ought to have liked her. My Lady Warrington certainly ought to have liked her, for she can play the hypocrite, and I cannot. And there was this young creature—pretty, graceful, shaped like a nymph, with beautiful black eyes—and we cared for them no more than for two gooseberries! At Warrington my wife and I, when we pretended to compare notes, elaborately complimented each other on our new sister's beauty. What lovely eyes!—Oh yes! What a sweet little dimple on her chin!—Ah oui! What wonderful little feet!—Perfectly Chinese! where should we in London get slippers small enough for her? And, these compliments exhausted, we knew that we did not like Fanny the value of one penny-piece; we knew that we disliked her; we knew that we ha... Well, what hypocrites women are! We heard from many quarters how eagerly my brother had taken up the new anti-English opinion, and what a champion he was of so-called American rights and freedom. “It is her doing, my dear,” says I to my wife. “If I had said so much, I am sure you would have scolded me,” says my Lady Warrington, laughing: and I did straightway begin to scold her, and say it was most cruel of her to suspect our new sister; and what earthly right had we to do so? But I say again, I know Madam Theo so well, that when once she has got a prejudice against a person in her little head, not all the king's horses nor all the king's men will get it out again. I vow nothing would induce her to believe that Harry was not henpecked—nothing.
Well, we went to Castlewood together without the women, and stayed at the dreary, dear old place, where we had been so happy, and I, at least, so gloomy. It was winter, and duck-time, and Harry went away to the river, and shot dozens and scores and bushels of canvasbacks, whilst I remained in my grandfather's library amongst the old mouldering books which I loved in my childhood—which I see in a dim vision still resting on a little boy's lap, as he sits by an old white-headed gentleman's knee. I read my books; I slept in my own bed and room—religiously kept, as my mother told me, and left as on the day when I went to Europe. Hal's cheery voice would wake me, as of old. Like all men who love to go a-field, he was an early riser: he would come and wake me, and sit on the foot of the bed and perfume the air with his morning pipe, as the house negroes laid great logs on the fire. It was a happy time! Old Nathan had told me of cunning crypts where ancestral rum and claret were deposited. We had had cares, struggles, battles, bitter griefs, and disappointments; we were boys again as we sat there together. I am a boy now even as I think of the time.
That unlucky tea-tax, which alone of the taxes lately imposed upon the colonies, the home Government was determined to retain, was met with defiance throughout America. 'Tis true we paid a shilling in the pound at home, and asked only threepence from Boston or Charleston; but as a question of principle, the impost was refused by the provinces, which indeed ever showed a most spirited determination to pay as little as they could help. In Charleston the tea-ships were unloaded, and the cargoes stored in cellars. From New York and Philadelphia, the vessels were turned back to London. In Boston (where there was an armed force, whom the inhabitants were perpetually mobbing), certain patriots, painted and disguised as Indians, boarded the ships, and flung the obnoxious cargoes into the water. The wrath of our white Father was kindled against this city of Mohocks in masquerade. The notable Boston Port Bill was brought forward in the British House of Commons; the port was closed, and the Custom House removed to Salem. The Massachusetts Charter was annulled; and,—in just apprehension that riots might ensue, in dealing with the perpetrators of which the colonial courts might be led to act partially,—Parliament decreed that persons indicted for acts of violence and armed resistance, might be sent home, or to another colony, for trial. If such acts set all America in a flame, they certainly drove all wellwisbers of our country into a fury. I might have sentenced Master Miles Warrington, at five years old, to a whipping, and he would have cried, taken down his little small-clothes and submitted: but suppose I offered (and he richly deserving it) to chastise Captain Miles of the Prince's Dragoons? He would whirl my paternal cane out of my hand, box my hair-powder out of my ears. Lord a-mercy! I tremble at the very idea of the controversy? He would assert his independence in a word; and if, I say, I think the home Parliament had a right to levy taxes in the colonies, I own that we took means most captious, most insolent, most irritating, and, above all, most impotent, to assert our claim.
My Lord Dunmore, our Governor of Virginia, upon Lord Bottetourt's death, received me into some intimacy soon after my arrival in the colony, being willing to live on good terms with all our gentry. My mother's severe loyalty was no secret to him; indeed, she waved the king's banner in all companies, and talked so loudly and resolutely, that Randolph and Patrick Henry himself were struck dumb before her. It was Madam Esmond's celebrated reputation for loyalty (his Excellency laughingly told me) which induced him to receive her eldest son to grace.