Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/369

 356 him as her cavalier for the day, and that he was to consent to accompany her to the village church.

“Is it so great a request, the desire that you should sit beside a solitary lady for so short a space?” she asked, noting his rueful visage.

Harry assured her he would be very happy, but hinted at the bother of having to sit and listen to that fool of a Parsley; again assuring her, and with real earnestness, which she now affected to doubt, that he would be extremely happy.

“You know, I haven’t been there for ages,” he explained.

“I hear it!” she sighed, aware of the credit his escort would bring her in Beckley, and especially with Harry’s grandmamma Bonner.

They went together to the village church. The Countess took care to be late, so that all eyes beheld her stately march up the aisle, with her captive beside her. Nor was her captive less happy than he professed he would be. Charming comic side-play, at the expense of Mr. Parsley, she mingled with exceeding devoutness, and a serious attention to Mr. Parsley’s discourse. In her heart this lady really thought her confessed daily sins forgiven her by the recovery of the lost sheep to Mr. Parsley’s fold.

The results of this small passage of arms were that Evan’s disclosure at Fallowfield was annulled in the mind of Harry Jocelyn, and the latter gentleman became the happy slave of the Countess de Saldar.

“ length I roused myself from my despondency, and looking at the old man, who had again filled his pipe, and was smoking moodily by the river’s bank, said:

‘But how is it, Mysterious Being, that you are able to exercise so terrible a fascination over the minds of successive generations of young and beautiful females? Pardon me for the abruptness of my observation, but to my eyes, Jew, you are somewhat unlovely, and destitute of those personal attractions which in all ages have been supposed—’

‘Ha, ha, ha!’ replied the Wanderer.

‘—which have been always supposed, I say, to exercise a certain influence over the hearts of ladies. Is it not so?’

“The Jew cast a heavy purse up in the air, and catching it once, twice, and thrice, pronounced the word, ‘Shettlementsh!’ and relapsed into his tobacco dream.

‘Jew!’ I said, somewhat sternly, ‘whatever my own sufferings may have been, I will not sit here, and hear the sex so maligned. I draw a broad line of distinction between the young girl and the grim matron conscious of her awful powers. What is the meaning of novels in three volumes, illustrative of the tender passion, if the scenes so eloquently described by the authors do not touch some responsive chord in the human heart? What is the use of ?’

‘Don’t know, and can’t shay,’ replied the Jew, ‘exshept it acts like gin. Werry likely so. But, ma tear, you’ve no notion of the amount of good bottled-up in de female bresht. It’s the men—worsh luck—who do the potry part of the biznesh. Do you shuppose now, ma friend, that when you’ve been sitting up at nights writin’ of verses, and that short of ting, that the young ’ooman they are meant for is doin’ the same?—not a bit of it. She’s having a tidy little shupper, or putting away her tings, or trying the new ponnet on before the glass—and a thinkin, that plue becomes her sweet pretty face petter than pink. And when Penjamin is valking up and down shnivelling in de shnow, to catch a look of his shveetheart’s shadow upon the vinda-blind, think you Sarah would like to join him in the shlop? She put her little feet on the fender—she wrap her fat white shoulders up in a silken gown—she purr into the red fire like a little kitten, and shay, “Ah, Penjamin catch such a cold—he’ll want so many pocket-ankerchers to-morrow, Penjamin will. How funny are de men!” That is the thought of the Hidden One.’

‘Even so, Jew; but would you deprive men of the one small grain of consolation in their long and unhappy lives? Better to be self-deceived—better the terrible awakening—than not to have known the generous frenzy, the Divine Folly—if you will—of First Love!’

‘Ach!’ replied the Wanderer. ‘So shays Ikey, even after the shad experiensh of 266 wives besides his tear Shalome!’

“As I hesitated what to reply, I was surprised to see the marks of deep feeling evinced by my strange companion. Hot tears rolled down his furrowed cheeks—he removed his pipe—and sang, whilst his thoughts were busy with the Past:

Oh! for the good old time

When Ikey in his prime

Sang a song of true love at his shveetart’s toor!

Love’s fever ran so high,

He thought that he must die,

Unless his sorrow’s burden on her buzzim he could pour!

He vos so shad,

But yet so glad,

The Jew vos!

Oh, for the good old time!

‘Wanderer,’ I replied, ‘I respect your sufferings, but your verses are not worth much. Mean you then to tell me, as the result of an experience now spread over well-nigh nineteen centuries, that women are invariably, or even as a general rule, admitting but of few exceptions—mercenary?’

‘You can gammon de young ’uns if dey have not been well prought up—but petween twenty and forty, ma tear, which is a woman’s real life, look to yourself in de pargain. They know the value of every yellow hair in their shweet heads to a fraction. Now you try it on: now just try. It’s what you can give them—where you can place them—they care for—not you. De hushband, ma tear, is just the fifth wheel in de hackney coach. Mind you musht never say this—it is one of the Jew’s shecrets, else they will call out: ‘Oh!“Oh! [sic] de nashty, nashty man,man,” [sic] and kickle at you—so.’

‘But, Jew, I know of exceptions.’