'And has our atmosphere, Elinor, no purifying particles, that, in defiance of its occasional mists, render it salubrious?'
'Oh, I don't mean alone the foggy air that she must inhale; but the foggy souls whom she must see and hear. If she have no political bias, that sets natural feelings aside, she'll go off in a lethargy, from ennui, the very first week. For myself I confess, from my happiness in going forth into the world at this sublime juncture, of turning men into infants, in order to teach them better how to grow up, I feel as if I had never awaked into life, till I had opened my eyes on that side of the channel.'
'And can you, Elinor, with a mind so powerful, however pardon me! wild, have witnessed'
'Oh, I know what you mean! but those excesses are only the first froth of the cauldron. When once 'tis skimmed, you will find the composition clear, sparkling, delicious!'
'Has, then, the large draught which, in a two years' residence amidst that combustion, you have, perforce, quaffed, of revolutionary beverage, left you, in defiance of its noxious qualities, still thus' He hesitated.
'Inebriated, you would say, Albert,' cried she, laughing, 'if you blushed not for me at the idea. But, in this one point, your liberality, though matchless in every other, is terribly narrowed by adhesion to old tenets. You enjoy not therefore, as you ought, this glorious epoch, that lifts our minds from slavery and from nothingness, into play and vigour; and leaves us no longer, as heretofore, merely making believe that we are thinking beings.'
'Unbridled liberty, Elinor, cannot rush upon a state, without letting it loose to barbarism. Nothing, without danger, is suddenly unshackled: safety demands control from the baby to the despot.'
'The opening essays here,' she replied, 'have certainly been calamitous: but, when all minor articles are progressive, in rising to perfection, must the world in a mass alone stand still, because its amelioration would be costly? Can any thing be so absurd, so preposterous, as to seek to improve mankind individually, yet bid it stand still collectively? What is education, but reversing propensities; making the idle industrious, the rude civil, and the ignorant learned? And do you not, for every student thus turned out of his likings, his vagaries, or his vices, to be new modelled, call this alteration improvement? Why, then, must you brand all similar efforts for new organizing states, nations, and bodies of society, by that word of unmeaning alarm, innovation?'
'To reverse, Elinor, is not to new model, but to destroy. This education, with which you illustrate your maxims, does it begin with the birth? Does it not, on the contrary, work its way by the gentlest gradations, one part almost imperceptibly preparing for another, throughout all the stages of childhood to adolescence, and of adolescence to manhood? If you give Homer before the Primer, do you think that you shall make a man of learning? If you shew the planetary system to the child who has not yet trundled his hoop, do you believe that you will form a mathematician? And if you put a rapier into his hands before he has been exercised with foils, what is your guarantee for the safety of his professor?'
Just then the stranger, having taken off her gloves, to arrange an old shawl, in which she was wrapt, exhibited hands and arms of so dark a colour, that they might rather be styled black than brown.
Elinor exultingly drew upon them the eyes of Harleigh, and both taking, at the same instant, a closer view of the little that was visible of the muffled up face, perceived it to be of an equally dusky hue.
The look of triumph was now repeated.
'Pray, Mistress,' exclaimed Mr Riley, scoffingly fixing his eyes upon her arms, 'what part of the world might you come from? The settlements in the West Indies? or somewhere off the coast of Africa?'
She drew on her gloves, without seeming to hear him.
'There!' said he, 'now the demoiselle don't understand English again! Faith, I begin to be entertained with her. I did not like it at first.'
'What say you to your dulcinea now, Harleigh?' whispered Elinor; 'you will not, at least, yelep her the Fair Maid of the Coast.'
'She has very fine eyes, however!' answered he, laughing.
The wind just then blowing back the prominent borders of a French night-cap, which had almost concealed all her features, displayed a large black patch, that covered half her left cheek, and a broad black ribbon, which bound a bandage of cloth over the right side of her forehead.
Before Elinor could utter her rallying congratulations to Harleigh, upon this sight, she was stopt by a loud shout from Mr Riley; 'Why I am afraid the demoiselle has been in the wars!' cried he. 'Why, Mistress, have you been trying your skill at fisty cuffs for the good of your nation? or only playing with kittens for your private diversion?'
'Now, then, Harleigh,' said Elinor, 'what says your quixotism now? Are you to become enamoured with those plaisters and patches, too?'
'Why she seems a little mangled, I confess; but it may be only by scrambling from some prison.'
'Really, Mr Harleigh,' said Mrs Maple, scarcely troubling herself to lower her voice as, incessantly, she continued surveying the stranger, 'I don't think that we are much indebted to you for bringing us such company as this into our boat! We did not pay such a price to have it made a mere common hoy. And without the least enquiry into her character, too! without considering what one must think of a person who could look out for a place, in a chance vessel, at midnight!'
'Let us hope,' said Harleigh, perceiving, by the down-cast eyes of the stranger, that she understood what passed, 'that we shall not make her repent her choice of an asylum.'
'Ah! there is no fear!' cried she, with quickness.
'Your prepossession, then, is, happily, in our favour?'
'Not my prepossession, but my gratitude!'
'This is true practical philosophy, to let the sum total of good outbalance the detail, which little minds would dwell upon, of evil.'
'Of evil! I think myself at this moment the most fortunate of human beings!'
This was uttered with a sort of transport that she seemed unable to control, and accompanied with a bright smile, that displayed a row of beautifully white and polished teeth.
Riley now, again heartily laughing, exclaimed, 'This demoiselle amuses me mightily! she does, faith! with hardly a rag to cover her this cold winter's night; and on the point of going to the bottom every moment, in this crazy little vessel; with never a friend to own her body if she's drowned, nor an acquaintance to say a word to before she sinks; not a countryman within leagues, except our surly pilot, who grudges her even life-room, because he's afraid he shan't be the better for her: going to a nation where she won't know a dog from a cat, and will be buffetted from pillar to post, if she don't pay for more than she wants; with all this, she is the most fortunate of human beings! Faith, the demoiselle is soon pleased! She is, faith! But why won't you give me your receipt, Mistress, for finding all things so agreeable?'
'You would be sorry, Sir, to take it!'
'I fear, then,' said Harleigh, 'it is only past suffering that bestows this character of bliss upon simple safety?'
'Pray, Mr Riley,' cried Mrs Maple, 'please to explain what you mean, by talking so freely of our all going to the bottom? I should be glad to know what right you had to make me come on board the vessel, if you think it so crazy?'
She then ordered the pilot to use all possible expedition for putting her on shore, at the very first jut of land; adding, 'you may take the rest of the company round, wherever you chuse, but as to me, I desire to be landed directly.'
She could not, however, prevail; but, in the panic which had seized her, she grew as incessant in reproach as in alarm, bitterly bewailing the moment that she had ever trusted herself to such an element, such a vessel, and such guides.
'See,' said Harleigh, in a low voice to the stranger, 'how little your philosophy has spread; and how soon every evil, however great, is forgotten when over, to aggravate the smallest discomfort that still remains! What recompence, or what exertion would any one of us have thought too great, for obtaining a place in this boat only a few hours ago! Yet you, alone, seem to have discovered, that the true art of supporting present inconvenience is to compare it with past calamity, not with our disappointed wishes.'
'Calamity!' repeated she with vivacity, 'ah! if once I reach that shore, that blessed shore! shall I have a sorrow left?'
'The belief that you will not,' said he, smiling, 'will almost suffice for your security, since, certainly, half our afflictions are those which we suffer through anticipation.'
There was time for nothing more; the near approach to land seeming to fill every bosom, for the instant, with sensations equally enthusiastic.
CHAPTER II
Upon reaching the British shore, while Mrs Maple, her niece, the elderly lady, and two maid-servants, claimed and employed the aid of the gentlemen, the Incognita, disregarding an offer of Harleigh to return for her, darted forward with such eagerness, that she was the first to touch the land, where, with a fervour that seemed resistless, she rapturously ejaculated, 'Heaven, Heaven be praised!'
The pilot, when he had safely disembarked his passengers, committed the charge of his vessel to a boy, and, abruptly accosting the stranger, demanded a recompence for the risk which he had run in saving her life.
She was readily opening her work bag to seek for her purse, but the old sea officer, approaching, and holding her arm, gravely asked whether she meant to affront him; and, turning to the pilot, somewhat dictatorially said, 'Harkee, my lad! we took this gentlewoman in ourselves; and I have seen no reason to be sorry for it: but she is our passenger, and not your's. Come to the inn, therefore, and you shall be satisfied, forthwith, for her and the rest of us, in a lump.'
'You are infinitely good, Sir,' cried the stranger, 'but I have no claim .'
'That's your mistake, gentlewoman. An unprotected female, provided she's of a good behaviour, has always a claim to a man's care, whether she be born amongst our friends or our foes. I should be ashamed to be an Englishman, if I held it my duty to think narrower than that. And a man who could bring himself to be ashamed of being an Englishman, would find it a difficult solution, let me tell you, my good gentlewoman, to discover what he might glory in. However, don't think that I say this to affront you as a foreigner, for I hope I am a better Christian. I only drop it as a matter of fact.'
'Worthy Admiral,' said Mr Harleigh, now joining them, 'you are not, I trust, robbing me of my office? The pecuniary engagement with the pilot was mine.'
'But the authority which made him act,' returned the officer, 'was mine.'
A bright smile, which lightened up the countenance of the Incognita, again contrasted her white teeth with her dingy complexion; while dispersing the tears that started into her eyes, 'Fie upon me!' she cried, 'to be in England and surprised at generosity!'
'Gentlewoman,' said the Admiral, emphatically, 'if you want any help, command my services; for, to my seeming, you appear to be a person of as right a way of thinking, as if you had lisped English for your mother-tongue.'
He then peremptorily insisted that the boat's company should discharge the pilot, without any interference on the part of the lone traveller, as soon as it had done with the custom-house officers.
This latter business was short; there was nothing to examine: not a trunk, and scarcely a parcel, had the hurry and the dangers of escape hazarded.
They then proceeded to the principal inn, where the Admiral called all the crew, as he styled the party, to a spacious room, and a cheering fire, of which he undertook the discipline.
The sight of this meanly attired person, invited into the apartment both by the Admiral and Mr Harleigh, with a civility that seemed blind to her shabby appearance, proved so miraculous a restorative to Mrs Maple, that, rising from a great chair, into which, with a declaration that she was half dead from her late fright and sickness, she had thrown herself, she was endowed with sudden strength of body to stand stiffly upright, and of lungs to pronounce, in shrill but powerful accents, 'Pray, Mr Harleigh, are we to go on any farther as if we were to live all our lives in a stage coach? Why can't that body as well stay in the kitchen?'
The stranger would hastily have retired, but the Admiral, taking her softly by the shoulder, said, 'I have been a commanding officer the best part of my life, Gentlewoman; and though a devil of a wound has put me upon the superannuated list, I am not sunk into quite such a fair weather chap, as to make over my authority, in such a little pitiful skiff's company as this, to petticoat government; though no man has a better respect for the sex, in its proper element; which, however, is not the sea. Therefore, Madam,' turning to Mrs Maple, 'this gentlewoman being my own passenger, and having comported herself without any offence either to God or man, I shall take it kind if you will treat her in a more Christian-like manner.'
While Mrs Maple began an angry reply, the stranger forced herself out of the apartment. The Admiral followed.
'I hope, gentlewoman,' he was beginning, 'you won't be cast down, or angry, at a few vagaries ' when, looking in her face, he saw a countenance so gaily happy, that his condolence was changed into pleased astonishment. 'Angry!' she repeated, 'at a moment such as this! a moment of so blessed an escape! I should be the most graceless of wretches, if I had one sensation but of thankfulness and joy!'
'You are a very brave woman,' said the Admiral, 'and I am sorry,' looking at her tattered clothing, 'to see you in no better plight: though, perchance, if you had been born to more glitter without, you might have had less ore within. However, if you don't much like the vapouring of that ancient lady, which I have no very extraordinary liking to myself, neither, why stay in another room till we have done with the pilot; and then, if I can be of any use in helping you to your friends, I shall be glad to be at your service. For I take it for granted, though you are not in your own country, you are too good a woman to be without friends, as I know no worse sign of a person's character.'
He then joined his fellow-voyagers, and the stranger went on to enquire for the master of the house.
Sounds from without, that seemed to announce distress, catching, soon after, the attentive ear of Harleigh, he opened the door, and perceived that the stranger was returned to the passage, and in evident disorder.
The sea officer briskly advanced to her. 'How now!' he cried, 'disheartened at last? Well! a woman can be but a woman! However, unless you have a mind to see all my good opinion blown away thus! in a whiff, you won't think of drooping, now once you are upon British ground. For though I should scorn, I hope, to reproach you for not being a native born, still, not to be over-joyed that you can say, Here I am! would be a sure way to win my contempt. However, as I don't take upon me to be your governor, I'll send your own countryman to you, if you like him better, the pilot?'
'Not for the universe! Not for the universe!' she eagerly cried, and, darting into an empty room, with a hasty apology, shut the door.