Magnum Bonum; Or, Mother Carey's Brood Part 43

"Ah," said Bobus, meaningly.

"You've done it then, Bobus! You've put something to him."

"_I_ haven't," said Bobus, "but he's been licking himself all the way home. Well, we all know green is the sacred colour of the Grand Turk."

"No! You don't mean it!" said Allen, catching up the dog and holding him to the lamp, while Janet observed that he was a sort of chameleon, for his body, which had been black, was now yellow, and his chops which had been tan, had become black.

Elvira began to cry angrily, still uncomprehending, and fancying Bobus and Jock had played her a trick and changed her dog; Allen abused the horrid little brute, and the more horrid man who had deceived him; and Armine began pitying and caressing him, seriously distressed lest the poor little beast should have poisoned himself. Caroline herself expected to have heard that he was dead the next morning, and would have felt more compa.s.sion than regret; but, to her surprise and Allen's chagrin, Chico made his appearance, very rhubarb-coloured and perfectly well.

"I think," said Elvira, "I will give Chico to grandpapa, for a nice London present."

Everybody burst out laughing at this piece of generosity, and though the young lady never quite understood what amused them, and Allen heartily wished Chico among the army of dogs at River Hollow, he did somehow or other remain at the Folly, and, after the fas.h.i.+on of dogs, adopted Jock as the special object of his devotion.

Ellen came in, expecting to regale her eyes with the newest fas.h.i.+ons. Or were they all coming down from the dressmaker?

"I had no time to be worried with dressmakers," said Caroline.

"I thought you went there while the girls were going about with Mrs.

Acton."

"Indeed no. I had just got my new bonnet for the winter."

"But!"

"And _indeed_, I have not inherited any more heads."

Ellen sighed at the impracticability of her sister-in-law and the blindness of fortune. But n.o.body could sigh long in the face of that Twelfth-day Christmas-tree. What need be said of it but that each member of the house of Brownlow, and each of its dependents, obtained the very thing that the bright-eyed fairy of the family had guessed would be most acceptable.

CHAPTER XVII. -- POPINJAY PARLOUR.

Happiest of all, in that her gentle spirit Commits itself to yours to be directed.

Merchant of Venice.

"It is our melancholy duty to record the demise of James Barnes, Esq., which took place at his residence at Belforest Park, near Kenminster, on the 20th of December. The lamented gentleman had long been in failing health, and an attack of paralysis, which took place on the 19th, terminated fatally. The vast property which the deceased had acc.u.mulated, chiefly by steamboat and railway speculations in the West Indies, rendered him one of the richest proprietors in the county.

We understand that the entire fortune is bequeathed solely to his grand-niece, Mrs. Caroline Otway Brownlow, widow of the late Joseph Brownlow, Esq., and at present resident in the PaG.o.da, Kenminster Hill.

Her eldest son, Allen Brownlow, Esq., is being educated at Eton."

That was the paragraph which David Ogilvie placed before the eyes of his sister in a newspaper lent to him in the train by a courteous fellow-traveller.

"Poor Caroline!" said Mary.

They said no more till the next day, when, after the English service at Florence, they were strolling together towards San Miniato, and feeling themselves entirely alone.

"I wonder whether this is true," began Mary at last.

"Why not true?"

"I thought Mr. Barnes had threatened the boys that they should remember the Midas escapade."

"It must have been only a threat. It could only lie between her and the Spanish child; and, if report be true, even the half would be an enormous fortune."

"Will it be fortune or misfortune, I wonder?"

"At any rate, it puts an end to my chances of being of any service to her. Be it the half or the whole, she is equally beyond my reach."

"As she was before."

"Don't misinterpret me, Mary. I mean out of reach of helping her in any way. I was of little use to her before. I could not save little Armine from those brutal bullies, and never suspected the abuse that engulphed Bobus. I am not fit for a schoolmaster."

"To tell the truth, I doubt whether you have enough high spirits or geniality."

"That's the very thing! I can't get into the boys, or prevent their thinking me a Don. I had hoped there was improvement, but the revelations of the half-year have convinced me that I knew just nothing at all about it."

"Have you thought what you will do?"

"As soon as I get home, I shall send in my notice of resignation at Midsummer. That will see out her last boy, if he stays even so long."

"And then?"

"I shall go for a year to a theological college, and test my fitness to offer myself for Holy Orders."

A look of satisfaction on his sister's part made him add, "Perhaps you were disappointed that I was not ordained on my fellows.h.i.+p seven years ago."

"Certainly I was; but I was in Russia, and I thought you knew best, so I said nothing."

"You were right. You would only have heard what would have made you anxious. Not that there was much to alarm you, but it is not good for any one to be left so entirely without home influences as I was all the time you spent abroad. I fell among a set of daring talkers, who thought themselves daring thinkers; and though the foundations were never disturbed with me, I was not disposed to bind myself more closely to what might not bear investigation, and I did not like the aspect of clerical squabbles on minutiae. There was a tide against the life that carried me along with it, half from sound, half from unsound, motives, and I shrank from the restraint, outward and inward."

"Very likely it was wise, and the best thing in the end. But what has brought you to it?"

"I hope not as the resource of a shelved schoolmaster."

"Oh, no; you are not shelved. See how you have improved the school. Look at the numbers."

"That is no test of my real influence over the boys. I teach them, I keep them in external order, but I do not get into them. The religious life is at a low ebb."

"No wonder, with that vicar; but you have done your best."

"Even if my attempts are a layman's best, they always get quenched by the cold water of the Rigby element. It is hard for boys to feel the reality of what is treated with such business-like indifference, and set forth so feebly, not to say absurdly."

"I know. It is a terrible disadvantage."

"Listening to Rigby, has, I must say, done a good deal to bring about my present intention."