I've soom beatiful lamb chops,
and you could have a ducklin' and some nice young peas to
your second course. The post-boy says the 'osses is pretty
nigh done up; but by the time - '
'How did you know our names?' asked my companion.
'Law sir! The post-boy, he told me. But, beggin' your
pardon, Mr. Napeer, my daughter, she lives in Holkham
willage; and I've heard you preach afore now.'
'Let's have the dinner by all means,' said I.
'If the Bishop sequesters my living,' cried Napier, with
solemnity, 'I'll summon the landlord for defamation of
character. But time's up. You must make for the boat-house,
which is on the other side of the park. I'll go with you to
the head of the lake.'
We had not gone far, when we heard the sound of an
approaching vehicle. What did we see but an open carriage,
with two ladies in it, not a hundred yards behind us.
'The aunt! by all that's - !'
What - I never heard; for, before the sentence was
completed, the speaker's long legs were scampering out of
sight in the direction of a clump of trees, I following as
hard as I could go.
As the carriage drove past, my Friar Lawrence was lying in a
ditch, while I was behind an oak. We were near enough to
discern the niece, and consequently we feared to be
recognised. The situation was neither dignified nor
romantic. My friend was sanguine, though big ardour was
slightly damped by the ditch water. I doubted the expediency
of trying the boat-house, but he urged the risk of her
disappointment, which made the attempt imperative.
The padre returned to the inn to dry himself, and, in due
course, I rejoined him. He met me with the answer to my
note. 'The boat-house,' it declared, 'was out of the
question. But so, of course, was the POSSIBILITY of CHANGE.
We must put our trust in PROVIDENCE. Time could make NO
difference in OUR case, whatever it might do with OTHERS.
SHE, at any rate, could wait for YEARS.' Upon the whole the
result was comforting - especially as the 'years' dispensed
with the necessity of any immediate step more desperate than
dinner. This we enjoyed like men who had earned it; and long
before I deposited my dear friar in his cell both of us were
snoring in our respective corners of the chaise.
A word or two will complete this romantic episode. The next
long vacation I spent in London, bent, needless to say, on a
happy issue to my engagement. How simple, in the retrospect,
is the frustration of our hopes! I had not been a week in
town, had only danced once with my FIANCEE, when, one day,
taking a tennis lesson from the great Barre, a forced ball
grazed the frame of my racket, and broke a blood vessel in my
eye.
