"Is a bee a vegetable, Nunky?" "Not quite, Cis; but what are you coming to?" Why, Nunky, Mr. Peascod wouldn't take milk with his coffee, nor butter with his muffin, because he said it was an animal production.' Isn't honey an animal production?" "Hardly, Cis: it is the juice of flowers." "But, Nunky, milk is the juice of grass, and so is butter; the bees drink flower-juice and make honey of it. I think Mr. Peascod must be very wicked to eat that honey, if he thinks it so wrong to drink the juice our cow sucks out of the grass." Really now, this is a poser for the over scrupulous: Mr.Brotherton must se to it, and do as the Pope has done, and get up a grand vegetarian conclave to decide upon the immaculate conception of honey. I fear your question, Cis, will reduce poor Peascod's dietary still further. Ay, Mr. Peascod, and is not also mushroom near of kin to flesh, morel to tripe, and trufile to gizzard? Who shall draw the line of demarcation, and fix where the zoophyte ends and the fungus begins? Why, they hunt trutiles with dogs in our parts; and some toad-stools smell villanously putrid. Let Mr. Peascod, if he has a conscience, tremble at the flavour of such luxuries. Furthermore, and to starve him out entirely; let him recollect Sir William Jones's microscopic talk with the Brahmin about his strict pomegranate breakfast: every bit of fruit and every glass of water is a world of animal life, and even (poor Peascod !) you cannot breathe a breath without inhaling hundreds of eggs! Think of that, and boldly try a bantam's for breakfast. I once had a dog who took to eating grass; not medicinally as some dogs do, but after a right hungry fashion, like Peascod, and Peascod's great prototype, the lunatic Nebuchadnezzar. Well, poor Juno soon swelled up like a cow among the turnips, and then lay panting on the dunghill, till the keeper shot her, to put the poor maddening beast, as he said, out of her misery. I hope Mr. Peascod may never live to meet such tender mercies. Push everything to pure extremity, says Folly: mix all things, and take the mean every way, says Wisdom. Compromise nothing, is the rule of human vanity make compromise with everything around, is the brotherly providential maxim. : Peace at all price and vegetables for ever! That's your motto, O most flatulent Cowardice; but recollect, henceforth you are forbidden to eat honey: ay, and there are even grave doubts about the pure vegetarianism of a mushroom. JOHN TWILLER. BY GODFREY MASSINGEERD, CHAPTER IV. AUNT TRUMPERANT. itself like a weather-beaten countenance, from amidst a bristling whisker of gorse, fern, and heather. The whole scene cried, "Cheer up, my lad!" as plain as a scene could speak; and the pulse in Twiller's bosom could not resist the response, and echoed, "Ay, ay, sir!" in an audible throb of health and hope. It was a scene which stood in little need of an interpreter. The foreground, as has been described-the abodes of men left far below. At one TT side hills in a state of nature, born in the purple, and now doubly purpled of heath and heaven. At the other, a precipice; and, far below, the sea. On before, beyond the crest of the hill now nearly reached, a landscape, glorious as the boasted valley of Kashmeer, which every step was lifting up, as it were, in its softness and light, out of the roughness of the interposed foreground, like a noble infant out of a coarse cradle. If philosophers do not know it, simple people are aware that there is a power in the morning, which conveys itself to men, and by a daily libration causes them to receive beams of light from earlier phases of exist ence. It is compensated for before night, it is true. Thus we live more than a day within a day. We are younger than ourselves in the morning, and older in the evening; and each day performs its particular epicycle upon the grand deferent of life. He Twiller stepped buoyantly along upon the freestone pathway. could not help it; though his errand led him in no cheerful direction. He could not help it; though his life was a life of struggle; though his affairs were in a state of perplexing embarrassment; though so numerous a flock of helpless and portionless dear ones clung confidingly about him, ignorant of the tremendous gulf which his removal or ruin would open before them. And now he had crested the hill, and held his way down its southern slope, through an air mitigated by the sunward aspect, of which indeed the expansion of the bushes into trees, and the blossoming of rosewrapped cottages, here and there, under the eaves of the rocks, gave independent indication. A few minutes, and he was among all these pleasant things; the path had become a lane, its boundaries hedges, and instead of the passing cloud, the sun would now be obscured ever and anon by the interposed shoots of the young fir and beech. At the shady side of the lane, no doubt, somewhat of wild mountain nature still lurked. It was cold and silent; blue drops stood stiffly upon the blades, fronds of fern held up their heads amidst a tamer vegetation, like deer in a copse; and altogether that side looked as if it would not take example by the other on any account, and become domesticated. At last, turning out of the lane by a large, damaged wooden gate which seemed once designed to have passed for stone, but had long been forced to relinquish its pretensions, Twiller found himself in a spacious lawn, across which a track straggled towards a great white house. This he patiently followed through its windings, which were numerous and unaccountable enough. At first it seemed as if it was intended that you should proceed in a direct line to the mansion; which, indeed, might easily have been effected, as the nature of the ground presented no obstacles of any moment. Soon, however, marks of hesitation became apparent; sudden divergencies, first to the right, and then to the left, betokening bewilderment and perplexity. The engineer to whom the construction of the avenue was entrusted, would seem to have struck. out the line of a dark night, and apparently traced it in a gig drawn by a shy horse. This was rendered still more probable as you approached the mansion, for a few perches from it the road made a sudden bolt in the direction of the horse-pond, which it shaved clear of, only to run close in upon the stable-yard previous to sweeping up to the principal entrance. It was a perilous feat, thought Twiller; but it was accomplished; and, after all, in landscape gardening straight lines are against the rules. The place wanted to be combed and brushed, sadly. The trees were frowzy and matted; duckweed slimed over the pond, and moss and rushes blabbed of exhausted soil and choked drains. But what at once struck the stranger's eye was the evidence, more or less apparent everywhere, of an older order of things, underlying the present, and indicative of a grander and more uniform idea. A long straight backbone ran through the lawn, on either side of which protruded a few ancient stumps, like processes, hinting at a lordly avenue under the sod, like a title in abeyance. A dove-cot, wholly disproportioned to everything else, afforded refuge to a few flighty pigeons, apparently much persecuted by hawks. Rooks cawed like grim gentlefolk, keeping themselves up at a terrific height in the top stories of tumble-down timber; and, at either side of the mansion-door, which you reached after a perilous ascent of steps, yawned an iron extinguisher, intended, before the days of the family decadence, for the flambeaux of the aristocracy, and at which (considering what was inside) you might as well put out any little friendly taper of comfort you had carried with you so far. history of the past. Though he would not allow the logic of the formulagiven the personal history, to find the character he could not but see that, in his aunt Trumperant's instance, no events could have made her what she was but those which had actually occurred. Her husband had inherited the remnant of an originally fine estate, left after the successive drains of a long line of prodigals; the last of whom had duly bequeathed the only personal property he died pos fects, to his heir. In one particular, and in one alone, Hector Trumperant did not resemble his progenitors. He was childless; and at his death the estate had gone to an only brother, who was glad to gratify the fancy of his eccentric sisterin-law, and live in a more agreeable neighbourhood, leaving her in undia turbed possession of the ruinous harrack which constituted the family mansion, taking care to deduct for it and the demesne an unconscionable rent out of the jointure with which the estate was charged in her favour. For it was uncomfortable within,sessed of namely, his personal dethat capital mansion-house- uncomfortable as a boarding-school in vacation. Why need it be described? Not to speak of the atmosphere that breathed out when the hall-door was opened, its hospitality was not favorably prefigured by a venomous little brute of a dog that let itself fly headlong at Twiller's legs as if it had been waiting for him for a week; and had to be removed by the tail. The domestic who performed this act, and who was to be known as such only by his wearing an apron over a labourer's dress, answered to his interrogatories in an uncomfortable voice, -nor was the reply in itself very cheering. "Mistress has had a fit; and wants to see you, sir." "Mistress" was a widowed and childless aunt of Twiller's, who enjoyed a small jointure and the use of a large mansion-house. She had shown but little sympathy for John Twiller or his struggles, though he took opportunities every now and then of attempting little acts of kindness by stealth. This secrecy was prudential. She was of an alarming and fiery independence, Mrs. Trumperant, and generally resented a benefit as ordinary people do an affront. The resentment was active, too. She would storm your house, and if you happened to be, or feigned to be, from home, would give language to the servants, and wring the children's ears. She had no notion of being put under obligations to anybody, and not paying the debt in ready money. Twiller was forced to admit, in view of Mrs. Trumperant's case, that if circumstances do not create character, at all events they occasionally modify it to such a degree as to give it a special relation to the personal The glaring incongruity throughout Mrs. Trumperant's lengthened widowhood had all along consisted in this, that she had too small a jointure, and too large a mansion-house. This it was, though it was her own choice, that kept her habitually at defiance with the world. A proud-looking place, seen from three roads,-a name estated in the district for centuries, a feudal gate, lofty steps, and extinguishers,and three-hundred a year! Her life was devoted to reconciling these extremes-that is, to taking the pride out of the place, and storing it up in herself. To the land she was cruel and inexorable; she broke almost all of it up, drew its heart out, exhausted it to its last fibre, and never gave it a season to recover, or manure to refresh it. To her domestics she was equally uncompromising. For the smallest amount of wages she extorted the labour of galley-slaves. That she found individuals to accept her terms was astonishing; but, once in her service, it was easier to account for their remaining, as they always did; for it was well known that she worked upon their terrors with vague threats in case of desertion, and that they preferred even the grim Trumperant rule to the risk of attempting pantry-breach; in addition to which, she preserved the whiphand by keep ing their wages well in arrear-a contrivance which appeared to answer her purpose in more ways than one. It was upon herself, however, that the reign of terror pressed with the heaviest weight. This fact was notorious, and certainly helped to give her the hold she had over her household. They saw she was in earnest ; and derived a bleak satisfaction, besides, in seeing that their wrongs were continually avenging themselves upon her own person. If their bed was hard, hers was stony-if their diet was coarse and scanty, hers was prison fare--if they were driven ruthlessly from one task to another, she seemed goaded night and day by some demon of unrest which appearedto exercise a function similar to that of the familiars described by Llorente, and with inquisitorial malignity to refuse all repose to its victim. "Mistress has had a fit, and wants you, sir." "She must be in articulo," thought Twiller, "to want me or any body else." Nevertheless, as the sportsman warily approaches the wounded crane, so John Twiller instinctively prepared himself to stand on the defensive as soon as he should arrive in Mrs. Trumperant's presence. Indeed, he did not feel quite secure from a missive shoe or teapot, and privately determined to keep near the door, and make a reconnaisance previous to coming to close quarters. The precaution was unnecessary. Mrs. Trumperant put her lean and palsied hand out of the bed towards her nephew; and although for an instant he glanced at it, as if to satisfy himself that it did not contain a handgrenade, the next he had hurried forward, grasped the skeleton fingers in both his, and experienced a spasm of natural affection. "Jack!" she gasped out, looking at him long and earnestly," Jack, I want you, first of all, to flog Gaggins for me." Twiller could not at once frame an answer to this disconcerting request. "You want to know why? Quite right; but I am not going to tell. I-I-well, you shall flog him by and-by. Don't let him fancy he'll get off because his mistress is sick and going to die. She'll leave her horsewhip to able bodied trustees to _the uses of her will, and bequeath Barnaby Gaggins fifty cuts, with interest for every day the payment is delayed." But, my dear aunt 66 Tut, Jack. Hector Trumperant told me, five-and-thirty years ago, that I was a flint; am I to soften now, and to that scorpion Gaggins? Fellows about you are all scorpions. You'll find that out yet, Jack. I declare, I think I've strength left to pay Ga 5gins his legacy myself! See, Jack, yonder's the gigwhip-stay, I must lie back a minute or two-very weak -very weak-not so strong, you see.” "Dear aunt, this will do mischief. Leave everything to me, and compose yourself." Leave everything to you? Everything? What is the everything I have to leave? Everything else, I suppose you mean. Residuary legatee. Eh ? Twiller was shocked at the construction she had put upon his words. It was evident what her mind was running upon. He said what he could to remove the impression; but she either was, or affected to be, slow of admitting any excuse. The sun came grandly in at the old chamber-window -as magnificently as if it was entering the roofless palace of Nineveh, or moving like the Spirit of God upon the face of the waters. It strangely illumined the grotesque old hangings, the cat-betrampled carpeting, and the irascible visage of Mrs. Trumperant. She was sitting up in the bed. In this attitude her condition was in a manner typified-helplessly and hopelessly an invalid as far as the tide of bedclothes submerged her emaciated form; above, a Scylla, intended to be seen, and in costume accordingly. This was appropriate. She was not handsome to speak of. Her beard was so far feminine that it did not cover her nether face continuously, but sprung from detached elevations in tufts like the bulbous tribe. There is a Grecian Venus with a beard; modern divinities of that sex have dropped it. There was great device in Mrs. Trumperant's head-dress. It was a bonnet of the original coalscuttle fashion. This bonnet was perched upon a mass of grizzled hair drawn up from all sides into a great nest to support it. From it depended over either ear a ribbon rolled tightly up like a horseman's cloak, apparently to keep it out of the chasm formed by her collar-bone. The poor woman's neck was bare, as were her arms from the elbow. A sad spectacle! Still, every body would be inclined to acquit her of the slightest idea of display; and, no doubt, she would have been as ready as any one to deny the appropriateness of the term "charms" as applied to the revelations of her toilette. As for Twiller, he was firmly convinced that the exhibition was a sacrifice rather than a weakness, made in the spirit of her other actions in order to preserve the integrity of the style she thought suitable. Yet it was trying to her as it has been held to be before now at grander places-a low dress in broad sunshine. "Come round again, Jack, sir, will you?" exclaimed she, with a feeble shrillness which demanded the full play of her features; you must not stand in my light as long as I can make use of it. There, stay there, and let me speak to you." Twiller, in moving round to the other side of the bed, became suddenly conscious that he had a duty to perform-religion. She was going to die, and might make no sign. "Let me first say a word to you"No, youngster,-I have not called you to listen to you but to be listened to. You have been all your life an underhand, meddling sort of fellow; prowling about Trumperant Hall as if I had hoarded money and you were next of kin; eh? Well? what do you say to that?" If I have asked after you, and now and then tried to smooth matters here "I expected, aunt, to feel when I returned to my usual seat at home, where I am alone, and think-that I had done my duty." Ah, exactly, duty! Do you know that I am your aunt? "Yes; and I could have loved you, if you had permitted me." "You don't love me, then ?" "How could I? I dared not approach you." 'Plain spoken, at all events. Fetch that pen and ink." There was a pen and ink within reach. "Now write as I dictate; we want no help. The Trumperant estate has make a lawyer of me. I, Grace Trumperant, being about to die, but of sound mind, do give and My dear aunt are going to make your last willthat is, to speak your last mind,-and you owe it to yourself and to your God to prelude this solemn instrument with a due recognition of the Author of your being, the Judge before whom you expect so shortly to appear." 66 Audacity!-effrontery!"-gasped the old lady. "Dictation!-interruption! And to a flint, as Trumperant called me, five-and-thirty years ago! Go on, Jack, sir!" "Not another word, until the claims of Heaven be satisfied. Oh! aunt, let me make use of this unexpected permission, denied me through life, of access to you, to show you the reality of things about you, before you, and above you. Even now you could compress into the remnant of your days the whole of the work it has taken good men long lives to accomplish; and though it must be done with trembling and tears, it will be as effectually and triumphantly done as if a whole career of consistent piety had been yours." "Well, if the form is decent, let it be used; and, now I recollect, old Wallop Trumperant's will was a regular sermon, in which he left the bull of his property from the honest. |