again, bless you! Remember, no stint of length THE PROVOCATIONS OF A BY FREDERICK GREENWOOD. HEN people play at let me quit her side, though I saw pleasure enough on every hand, and longed to scamper after it and into it. Perhaps, also, my aunt found the wilderness of this life haunted, after she had taken me into her company; perhaps she felt the eyes of her dead brother and sister upon her from time to time, anxious for their child. That may account for much. But I do not believe the ghosts of my parents required her to administer brimstone and treacle so frequently; to make me wear nightcaps; to send me to bed, in summer, ere the sun had set, and while I could still hear James Brown hallooing on the Common; to keep me in ignorance of roast pork and to brothify my blood with overmuch mutton; to declare brandy-balls contraband; to torture my feet with woollen socks; to make me read the "Shepherd of Salisbury Plain" every Sunday; or to dress me like a Guy. Here it was that I suffered most. Take collars for instance. Mr. Mowbray might have backed his scholars generally against any in the neighbourhood for small plaiting. I was one of the manner of Mr. Mowbray's pupils; and my collars were my Death and the aunt's-transparent muslin with an opaque hem, Lady, should be and pointed eaves that overhung my shoulders. engraved, and sent Of course, I was known as "Collars." Then that to all Caesars what- bottle-green suit! Then that- It is too late soever, many par- to engrave a diagram for these pages, or I would sons and spiritual supply an elevation and plans of a Cap aunt papas, many ladies made me to go to school in. Luckily, however, of the Bountiful there exists an article which will convey a tolebreed, many heads of families (strict)-of guar- rably accurate idea of it-the concertina. dians, governors, and maiden aunts many; whose Imagine one of those instruments. Let it be good intentions have furnished the hardest stones permanently distended; also let it be of a lively for that pavement which you and I, dear reader- blue colour. Take away the keyboards at either faithful husband, tender father, affectionate end, fill one of the apertures thus created with friend, and universally-beloved as you are-may a disc of covered cardboard, a tassel six inches never tread, I hope. Further allusion is need- long depending from the centre. Put your head less, save that the throne of him who reigns in into the other aperture. that place is made of such a stone entire; for Lucifer Son of the Morning it was who first played at providence-with the best intentions. It may not be in good taste to introduce my Aunt Deborah immediately after the above case; but what can one do, when he is allowed only three pages and a half for a whole article? There are hundreds of examples more heinous than she; and beginning with Charles Verhuil, otherwise Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte that prodigious player at providence, whose good intentions have all preceded him-I might have come down to my aunt in easy and graceful stages. But as it is! It is a shocking thing to say, but "Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring of woes unnumbered," hardly showered more miseries on an individual Greek head than my aunt's affection showered upon mine. She, good soul! undertook to provide for me when a superior Providence took my parents more immediately in charge. Herself, she had never been either father or mother; I doubt whether she had ever been a sweetheart; and I know she had grown up alone when a child, with no other playfellow but my grandfather, who taught her cribbage at the age of seven. Therefore, to her, life was dull. It was a wilderness to her, barren, deceiving; full of snares, and pit-falls, and disappointing joys. So taking me by the hand, she would not In vain I represented the impossibility of appearing in public with such a thing as this upon one's head. My aunt replied that she had made it exactly after the latest Book of Fashions. I remonstrated; I implored. I put a case, and asked her how she would like it-in vain. It was a summer morning when I was delivered over to a heartless public. Despatched to school, the agonies I endured in passing up our street are never to be described. At every footfall the wretched thing quivered on my head like a pile of jelly, sending a series of thrills down my spine, regular as the beatings of a pendulum. To alleviate this torture, I threw some rigidity into my back; an expedient which, while it only partially effected the object in view, seemed to hasten and to heighten the catastrophe of the situation. I was perceivedby Madgwick. Madgwick was always below me in class, and therefore it was with a yell of delight that he pointed me out to our schoolfellows. These, turning about, attributed the rigidity of my appearance to hauteur, and an overweening satisfaction in the object vibrating on my head. This sharpened their ideas of the ridiculous; and in another minute my already bleeding spirit fell fainting in the fire of their laughter. Ashamed to the last degree, I started away and ran. Alas me! If running abbre viated the duration of my torment, it increased its pangs; for the wretched cause of all bobbed little alarmed, I think; for she grew nervous, emand wriggled the more-not only to the delight | barrassed; set down the tea-pot with a trembling of my school-fellows, but to the amusement of hand, and seemed to make some feeble excuses the general public. I turned into a lane. I leapt a hedge. I tore the sky-blue horror from my head, and sat upon it, that it might be invisible even to the serene heavens. There I sat the summer-day long; returning home at length by dark passes, and in the shadow of the walls. And as I reentered the house, I resolved never to leave it in that cap again—never, alive. founded upon the black silk breeches of her generation. At length her confusion made me ashamed. I went up to her, asking her pardon ; and then, with a few tears, she quietly explained herself: What did I suppose to be the object of all her cutting and contriving? Was it to make me think her mean and unkind? No. It was because her little nephew would need money by Next morning Mr. Mowbray, whose morning and by to start him in the world, or even, perwalk was past our house, called to inquire re-haps, to support him in some long sickness, when specting my absence from school. Absence nursing was no longer to be had for love, but from school! Had I, then, been "wagging ?" only for money. From the day my father died My aunt was a stern woman; she viewed wag-she had been closely hoarding her little income; ging sternly; associating it with a future in by the time I needed it, it would be quite a which the gallows loomed large. She desired comfortable sum, please God; and it was all for Mr. Mowbray to give me a lecture on the spot. me. Who else? He complied; and every word, as it issued from his lips, she sharpened and drove home into my bosom with her eyes. This concluded, she drew forth the thing I have named, gently but firmly placed it on my head, and Mr. Mowbray led me away. I yielded to my fate, and from that day the school ceased to call me "Collars." I was now known as young "Bellows;" and Bellows I long remained. At a comparatively advanced period of life I had occasion to visit Madras. Hauled through the surf, I stood damp and alone upon a foreign shore. As this sad reflection passed through my mind, a voice suddenly opened at my elbow-"Hallo, Bellows!" I turned-it was Madgwick. Madgwick is a very agreeable man in private life I am told. I My aunt's next design upon my peace, while it exhibited still greater ingenuity, was not so successful. I was still a little fellow, and it occurred to her in an inventive moment that her black silk petticoat would make me a nice pair of trousers; and taking counsel with her dressmaker, she caused this idea to be realised privately. In blest unconsciousness I slept the night on which they were brought home, waking to see a sweet dream of my little sweetheart die away on the window-blind. It was Sunday; I should certainly behold her at church. I turned about for my best suit, and there, on a chair by the bed-side, lay the nice trousers, all others being artfully taken from the apartment. gazed on the "silks." With one twinkle of my ! legs I got into them, and bounded down stairs. Aunt Deborah stood on the hearth, tea-pot in hand, as I burst into the sitting-room, and proceeded to explain my sentiments in dumb show. Indignantly I presented the garment for reconsideration in every possible point of view, and with attitudes never conceived in the wildest dreams of a dervish. Side view, front view, view walking, view astraddle, view en pirouette, view in the act of flying the garter, of climbing a tree, with all and all together I reproached her, winding up with a torrent of ironical remarks. Oh! what a nice pair of trousers! Oh dear! how shiny! When I walked in the sun, people would say, "Look at that little boy! He shines like a black-beetle!" &c. Aunt was taken by surprise. She was even a My heart was now opened to the true interpretation of many little mysteries in our household, past and passing; and I was mollified accordingly. Looking on the silks, and thinking of kind intentions and strong stitches gone for nought, I resolved for a moment-but no, that would be too much. Besides, aunt did not insist this time; indeed, it soon appeared that the fandango she witnessed that morning had recoloured her ideas. A tailor was called in. Shortly afterwards I was taken from Mr. Mowbray's academy, and placed in the hands of Birch Budby, Esq., B.A., whose massive brow betrayed the scholar, while his tiny nose and fiery little eyes equally declared the boy-queller. But do not suppose my provocations ended here. In the first place, the ebullition of tenderness, remorse, or what you will, described above, was never repeated. And, again, my aunt's explanation revealed too much. It revealed the bond of dependence, at the moment when extravagant expenses were incurred for me at Budby's. Now, dependence was not to my mind. I could not endure the reflection that a good old lady was denying herself all sorts of comforts and old-lady-like luxuries for my sake. Once alive to this consideration, it grew apace. Her faded bonnets wounded me; her mangy wig smote me like another conscience; her antiquated fur tippet pointed the squirrel-tail of scorn at me; and when the old lady gave up her nightly negus and took to arrowroot, I felt like a ghoul, a vampire, a basilisk, and a bloodsucker. These were new and poignant miseries, and many a night they made me sleepless. And I verily believe aunt secretly enjoyed my disquiets. Why else did she come so often to see me (Budby's was only four miles from home), explaining with such a satisfied air that she was ashamed to come to the house-rather choosing to waylay me in the neighbourhood? With sandwiches in a basket for refreshment? In her worst gown? In a bonnet of archæological character? With pattens when it wasn't muddy, and an umbrella in serene July? It was on purpose to aggravate my feelings; to make them swell in my bosom as the livers of geese are enlarged, for a more ample and delicate re past. And, like the vulture that dined thirty years upon the liver of Prometheus, my aunt found in me a never-failing feast. this fact was (as before mentioned) that I was a ghoul, a vampire, a basilisk, and a blood-sucker; living on the substance of a poor old lady (as Solomon was nourished by many young ones), and reducing ner to the last stages of destitution. I was the devastating moth in her fur tippet; I, virtually, the little insect which represents the mange in her wig. "Twas I who, like another Eleanor, offered the gruel-cup to my kind old Rosamond, permitting her no alternative save the sharpness of hunger. Looking at the matter in this light I could endure it no longer; and, taking the first opportunity, went home to open my mind. But I do believe this vulturine appetite was stimulated by the kindest and most pathetical sentiments. If she had been called upon to explain them, she would have replied that she wished to incite me to make the most of my small advantages, by showing me their cost; that she had all her life long been trying to earn love by love alone; that she had signally failed in the attempt; and that now she was growing old, it became a matter of life and death almost to bind some heart to hers-one life that should ease her own down into the dark-waters-by any The old lady was about to make tea when means whatever. But how should I understand I entered. She loved tea; and her customary an old maid's sentiments at that early age? One allowance of the herb to each infusion was meafact, indeed, filled the whole circle of my contem-sured by a caddy-spoon of liberal capacity. But plations-there was room for nothing else; and on this occasion she actually took the sugar tongs, and deposited three nips into the disgusted urn. My courage had been falling, like the mercury in a thermometer, from the moment I entered the cool precincts of our home. On this proceeding of Aunt Deborah's it remounted, and with new resolution, as with a nail, I fixed it. I declared at once that I was resolved to remain an incubus (that was the word) no longer; that I was tired of being an incubus; and was convinced I could now fight my way in the world without robbing my relations. There was the sea, and there was the army. Aunt Deborah sank into a chair. For a few moments she kept silence; then abstractedly addressing the coal-scuttle, as if there she had hidden her household gods, she murmured way of releasing my aunt from further sacrifices, and myself from the pain of accepting them, I found I had compassed a measure of household treasury quite bewildering. This was to heap coals of fire upon the head of my benefactor, and at the same time to brand myself with the stigma of ingratitude. The incompatibilities of the case were dreadful to contemplate. Both horns of the dilemma pierced me at once, and vainly I appealed to my aunt for relief. Dreamy and lost, she kept her eyes on the coal-scuttle, rocked to and fro, and now and then lifting her eyes, muttered painfully. At length she rose and retired to her room. I followed desperately, but reached the door only in time to see it locked upon me. This was unfortunate; because, what a woman's heart is to her reason, so is her bed-room to her parlour, when you have anything to plead. The kind reader cannot fail to see the dilemma upon which I was thrown. He perceives, on the one hand, the frying-pan of repentance; and, on the other, the fire of an old woman's reproaches and her broken heart. It is easy to imagine me suspended over both, or suffering alternately in either. Matters became worse when the Reverend Jabez Whelk came on the scene; that was when I was eighteen, and urgent to get into some profession. Mr. Whelk was minister of my aunt's chapel, and used often to dine with her. As their acquaintance grew, his visits became more frequent; and having now left Budby's, I also enjoyed much of his company. Yet a little while, and his conversation became chiefly addressed to me, while aunt sat listening and smiling in the fulness of content. He talked sectarian talk; he appealed to my religious sen timents; he talked of ripening fields, and the dearth of labourers for the harvest; and it only I needed that my aunt should buy me some white neckcloths to reveal the plot. It was proposed to make me a minister of the Reverend Jabez Whelk's persuasion. Mr. Whelk belonged to a sect, small, but very lively, which I almost hated. (Remember, I was an unthinking boy at this time.) I hated it for the sake of the eccentric and popular preacher, Gupps, who, emulating the fame of Rowland Hill, became a brutal copy of that good man. I hated it for the sake of Obed Smiter, who was so outraged at finding himself described in certain placards as a reverend, that he put his face to the wall wherever they appeared, and gnawed out the vain word (at least, he used to boast that he did). Nor was Mr. Whelk himself at all calculated to improve my desire to enter the brotherhood, for in no respect did he seem like a Christian gentleman. Moreover, I had grace enough to know that I was unfit and unworthy to become a priest. I was no more suited to that high vocation than the vocation was suited to me; and, to be candid, I felt that the spotless neckcloth would be to me a choker indeed-strangling my best purposes, and clapping a tourniquet on my only aspirations. I awaited in calm resolve the formal opening of the subject; nor had I to wait long. I felt its approach, one winter evening, in the increased balminess of my aunt, and not less from the momentous deportment of Mr. Whelk. Presently, warmed with tea and lubricated with buttered toast, he led off, my aunt encouraging him with a grave smile. He glided into a dulcet and tortuous discourse half an hour long, rendered impressive by many quavers of emotion. At length, with a very long quaver indeed, he delivered himself of the question;-there it lay naked before me. He paused for a reply; so did my aunt; so did the knitting-pins reposing in her lap. I thought it safest to give it them at once; for my aunt's old distressful look was stealing its influence over me strong. So I delivered a round, hard negative right into the camp. The knitting-pins staggered, heeled over, and toppled into the fender. Aunt started her spectacles off, darted on me a look of reproach, and instantly assumed the appearance of a statue. Mr. Whelk fixed a melancholy eye upon the ceiling; but he-he evidently expected it. "Here's gratitude!" faltered the old lady, again apostrophising her gods in the coal-scuttle. "Ah, ma'am !" responded Mr. Whelk (low, and with symptoms of internal suffering), "here's gratitude indeed!-gratitude indeed!" I ventured to ask Mr. Whelk what he meant by that. Said he, wagging his forefinger at me"Beware, young man !-beware!" Now, I admit that I grew rather indignant at this exclamation; but am confident that neither act, look, nor word of mine justified my aunt in springing from her chair, precipitating herself between us, bidding me strike her but spare that good man. She did so, however; and a strong hysterical wind appeared to blow through the room at the moment, threatening a storm. Nor would she be pacified till Mr. Whelk assured her that though the viper might wound the bosom that had cherished it, its fangs would fail to penetrate his mail-clad breast! I shall proceed only a little further with this recital. Neither my sense of duty nor my inclination permitted me to fulfil my aunt's desire ; and she never forgave me. Nor more, perhaps, did Mr. Whelk; for when aunt fell ill, months afterward, of lumbago, he summoned me to her bedside, and amidst the groans of the chapelmembers that surrounded it called upon me to behold the wreck I had made! In the chapel itself I became the illustration of bitter texts; the end of which was that I could not pass a member without feeling that I was in some sort a wretch. Nor was this all; the Society's little tract, "C. V.; or the Sin of Ingratitude," which appeared about this time, and has since become so popular, rather more than hints at my case. Those are my initials, for instance. What more shall I say, with no space to say it in? This, at least; that I broke away from my dependence, took to an "honourable calling," and prospered: also, that presently I courted Clara Joy. Clara had beautiful curls; the curls were deadly objectionable to aunt, and so the little silly thing (Clara I mean) actually cut them off: excusing herself by declaring that she could not afford to lose me, nor could I afford to lose my Expectations! I do assure you-I do assure the public-this was not the smallest of my provocations; for Clara's hair never curled so nice again, How otherwise we were provoked: in the matter of public remarks on our page; in the matter of breeching our first boy; in the matter of convening prayer-meetings in my back parlour, without warning, in order to turn me from the perdition of my play-writing carcer-how all this happened I cannot go on to relate. Enough that we bore it all, because it seemed to be generally settled that that was the least we could do in return for our Expectations. Enough, that in the fulness of years the old lady died, leaving me one hundred pounds; bequeathing to our Charlie another hundred pounds (which did not compensate his sufferings in the matter of the breeching), and six times that sum to the mission of Crincumalee. The remainder of her property (near five thousand pounds) was devised for the purpose of building a splendid new chapel and residence for the Reverend Jabez Whelk. Which ended my provocations. PEEPS AT THE PAPER. Male's Nest, Nov. 8. The occasion of the annual dinner of the Dorking Agricultural Society gave Mr. Henry Drummond, M.P., an opportunity of favouring the assembly with "a word in reference to his friend the Rifleman." This was the opinion which will henceforward be the text and consolation of every patriot who shall be induced to arm for the protection of his country. Mark the cheerful union of wit and wisdom! "At one time in his life he had commanded a Rifle corps, and he would tell the Rifleman of the present day that he must take care of himself. He must not be ashamed to He must not be ashamed to lie on his face to avoid a shot, He must not be ashamed, either, to shield himself behind a donkey. He must load anywhere--tire anywhere. He must preserve his own life to the best of his power, and kill hide behind a tree, though he were as stout as Falstaff. 43 many of the enemy as he could." It is wonderful. I should like to see the man who writes them, and to see him write them. Does he gnaw his pen till the happy inspiration comes, then dash it forth upon the sheet, roar with delight, and ring for a printer? Does he relieve himself from headache by the parturition, after the manner of Jupiter bringing forth Minerva? Is he told to do it-does the matter rise spontaneously-does he weep over it, beat his brow, hunt through dictionaries for it, or dream of it? Why does he do it? Is he paid for it? And if so, who pays him, and why again? Who wants him to do it? Who likes him to do it? Who laughs at it? What would occur, were he not to do it? Does he pay for it to be printed, or has he bill transactions with anybody who gets it published? Does he ever do anything else? What else? Where? Is he happy? Has he been vaccinated? What is his weight? All these matters trouble me much. All the popular and romantic notions of shipwreck have been associated with waves "rolling mountains high," the wind blowing a hurricane, the lightning striking the masts, and hurling the destruction of fire upon the devoted vessel already doomed to be swallowed in the surging sea. So far does the merely ignorant imagination accumulate horrors which, while they are seldom found to accompany each other in reality, are yet far less terrible than the truth. What can be more truly fearful than the detailed accounts which have already reached us of the wreck of the Royal Charter? Already within sight of home, bearing to the longed-for reunion of household hopes, the wanderers returning from sojourn in a land where they had gained such wealth as held out the promise of There! what more can be wanted to inspire peace for years to come, the good ship is making the ardour of the Volunteer Corps? what better for the destined haven; already the prepara- | regulation for their conduct in the field? Will tions for departure have begun amongst the any member of these devoted bands any longer voyagers, when the gale which has long been hesitate to "take care of himself" after this? sounding its hoarse threatenings round the EngWill he be visited by any false feelings of deli-lish coast, summons the sea to rise and to cacy in hiding himself in a place of the greatest possible security?-nay, is he not justified even in that old (and, as some say, unfortunate) habit of his, of loading anywhere, and firing anywhere, when he considers that, supposing he commits execution only on the enemy, he is to kill only as many of them as is consistent with his own perfect safety ? Above all-oh! above all how assuring to know, on the authority of an ex-Commander, that if his conduct is ever called in question, he may "shield himself" behind Mr. Drummond! destroy. Then comes the terrible concussionthe wild horror of wind, and waves, and shrieks, and prayers, reaching the main-land in one great cry of agony-and the living freight of the strong ship is engulfed and silenced for ever. Oh! more dreadful than all the unsound imaginings of impossible terrors is that last endeavour to save the loved ones who are on the deck-that wild shriek of grief, as the fatal wave strikes away the one and leaves the rest standing, waiting an uncertain and yet a certain doom. There, in the midst of danger and of fear, however, is displayed that unfailing and steady bravery which we associate with the very name of "sailor." There, calm, self-reliant, and undismayed, the seaman, Joseph Rogers, moved by the old sea-king Valour, volunteered to take a hawser through the breakers. Struggling, sinking, fighting with the water, but manfully grap pling, hand to hand, with death, he reached the shore, with the only means which availed to save a single life that night. It is to be hoped that by the recognition of this deed the nation may save itself from one more disgrace. THE INCONSTANT READER. |