Remonstrance seemed blunted and ineffective everywhere. When Herbert Bowater tried to reclaim Harry Hornblower into giving up his notorious comrades, he received the dogged reply, "Why should not a chap take his pleasure as well as you?" With the authority at once of clergyman and squire's son, he said, "Harry, you forget yourself. I am not going to discuss my occupations with you."
"You know better," rudely interrupted the lad. "Racketing about all over the country, and coming home late at night. You'd best not speak of other folks!"
As a matter of fact, Herbert had never been later than was required by a walk home from a dinner, or a very moderate cricket supper; and his conscience was clear as to the quality of his amusements; but instead of, as hitherto, speaking as youth to youth, he used the language of the minister to the insulting parishioner. "I am sorry I have disturbed Mrs. Hornblower, but the case is not parallel. Innocent amusement is one thing-it is quite another to run into haunts that have already proved dangerous to your principles."
Harry Hornblower laughed. "It's no go coming the parson over me, Mr. Bowater! It's well known what black coats are, and how they never cry out so loud upon other folks as when they've had a jolly lark among themselves. No concealment now, we're up to a thing or two, and parsons, and capitalists, and squires will have to look sharp."
This oration, smacking of 'The Three Pigeons,' was delivered so loud as to bring the mother on the scene. "O, Harry, Harry, you aren't never speaking like that to Mr. Bowater!"
"When folks jaw me about what's nothing to them I always give them as good as they bring. That's my principle," said Harry, flinging out of the house, while the curate tried to console the weeping mother, and soon after betook himself to his Rector with no mild comments on the lad's insolence.
"Another warning how needful it is for us to avoid all occasion for misconstruction," said Julius.
"We do, all of us," said Herbert. "Even that wretched decoction, Fuller, and that mere dictionary, Driver, never gave cause for imputations like these. What has the fellow got hold of?"
"Stories of the last century 'two-bottle men,'" said Julius, "trumped up by unionists now against us in these days. The truth is that the world triumphs and boasts whenever it catches the ministry on its own ground. Its ideal is as exacting as the saintly one."
"I say Rector," exclaimed the curate, after due pause, "you'll be at Evensong on Saturday? The ladies at Sirenwood want me to go to Backsworth with them to hear the band."
"Cannot young Strangeways take care of his sisters?"
"I would not ask it, sir, but they have set their heart on seeing Rood House, and want me to go with them because of knowing Dr. Easterby. Then I'm to dine with them, and that's the very last of it for me. There's no more croquet after this week."
"I am thankful to hear it," said Julius, suppressing his distaste that the man he most reverenced, and the place which was his haven of rest, should be a mere lion for Bee and Conny, a slight pastime before the regimental band!
CHAPTER XXIII. The Apple of Ate
Oh mirror, mirror on the wall, Who is the fairest of us all?-The Three Bears
"I do really think Terry has found the secret of happiness, for a little while at least," said Rosamond, entering Mrs. Poynsett's room. "That funny little man in the loan museum has asked him to help in the arrangement."
"Who is it?"
"The little watchmaker, or watch cobbler, in the old curiosity shop."
"Yes; Terry calls him a descendant of the Genoese Frescobaldi, and I'm sure his black eyes were never made for an English head. Terry has always haunted those uncanny wares of his, and has pursued them to the museum. ''Tis not every young gentleman I would wish to see there,' says the old man, 'but the Honourable Mr. De Lancey has the soul of an antiquarian.'"
"They say the old man is really very clever and well read."
"He looks like an old magician, with his white cap and spectacles, and he had need to have a wand to bring order out of that awful chaos. Everybody all round has gone and cleared out their rubbish- closet. Upon my word, it looks so. There are pictures all one network of cracks, and iron caps and gauntlets out of all the halls in every stage of rust, and pots and pans and broken crocks, and baskets of coin all verdigris and tarnish!-Pah!"
"Are Miles's birds safe?"
"Oh yes, with a swordfish's sword and a sawfish's saw making a trophy on the top. Terry is in the library, hunting material for a dissertation upon the ancient unicorn, which ought to conclude with the battle royal witnessed by Alice in Wonderland. The stuffed department is numerous but in a bad way as to hair, and chiefly consists of everybody's grandmother's old parrots and squirrels and white rats. Then, every boy, who ever had a fit of birds' eggs or butterflies, has sent in a collection, chiefly minus the lower wings, and with volunteer specimens of moth; but luckily some give leave to do what they please with them, so the magician is making composition animals with the debris."
"Not really!"
"I made a feeble attempt with an admiral's wings and an orange tip, but I was scouted. About four dilapidated ones make up a proper specimen, and I can't think how it is all to be done in the time; but really something fit to be seen is emerging. Terry is sorting the coins, a pretty job, I should say; but felicity to him. But oh! the industrial articles! There are all the regalia, carved out of cherry-stones, and a patchwork quilt of 5000 bits of silk each no bigger than a shilling. And a calculation of the middle verse in the Bible, and the longest verse, and the shortest verse, and the like edifying Scriptural researches, all copied out like flies' legs, in writing no one can see but Julius with his spectacles off, and set in a brooch as big as the top of a thimble, all done by a one-legged sergeant of marines. So that the line might not be out done, I offered my sergeant-major's banner-screen, but I am sorry to say they declined it, which made me jealous."
"Are there any drawings of the Reynolds' boy?"
"Yes, Lenore Vivian brought them down, and very good they are. Every one says he has the making of a genius, but he does not look as if it agreed with him; he is grown tall, and thin, and white, and I should not wonder if those good-for-nothing servants bullied him."
"Did you see anything of Eleonora?"
"Nothing so impossible. I meet her every day, but she is always beset with the Strangeways, and I think she avoids me."
"I can hardly think so."
"I don't like it! That man is always hanging about Sirenwood, and Lenore never stirs an inch without one of those girls. I wish Frank could see for himself, poor fellow."
"He does hope to run down next week. I have just heard from him in high spirits. One of his seniors has come into some property, another is out of health and retires, so there is some promotion in view."
"I wish it would make haste then. I don't like the look of things."
"I can hardly disbelieve in the dear girl herself; yet I do feel as if it were against nature for it to succeed. Did you hear anything of Mrs. Bowater to-day?"