CHAPTER V.

"He talks to me, who never had a son."--KING JOHN.

We remember to have been shown once upon a time, as a marvellous curiosity, the stump of a large bay-tree, which had been cut down to make way for certain architectural improvements, and actually converted into a chopping-block, in which capacity it was employed during several years; but at length the family, to whom it appertained, quitted their dwelling, and the aforesaid stump, which had not been defunct, but only slumbering, was cast into a heap of earth, where, fertilized by the beams of the sun and the dews of the morning, it struck root amid the garden rubbish, and sent forth branches which flourished proudly, and spread their verdant foliage to the wondering skies. What joyful surprise would this neglected trunk have expressed had power of speech been granted! and with what grateful pride would it not have called on the admiring universe to behold and glorify its transformation!

Some such sentiments as we are supposing to have emanated from our bay tree, glowed in the hearts of Mr. and Mrs. Hartland as they gazed in rapture on a boy of uncommon symmetry and beauty; and, forgetful of the lavish prodigality of that vivifying principle which is employed at every moment in giving life from the palace to the cottage, the cottage to the kennel, and the kennel downwards to the lowest grade of organised existence, thanked Heaven with such alacrity of transport as seemed to intimate that they considered the effort of nature which animated the vital energies of Henbury as astonishing and unexpected as that which caused the chopping-block to put forth leaves and blossoms.

The innocent vanity which Mrs. Hartland had formerly felt at finding herself a wife, dwindled into insignificance in comparison with the elation of her spirits when the dignity of mother was added to her former honours; and the words "_son and heir_" might be read in every look, and traced in every gesture in characters which seemed to say, that none but herself had ever produced this mighty combination.

We have formerly stated, that literature was not the prevailing taste of the neighbourhood in which Henbury was planted, and as it is a common rule "to do as the Romans do while one is at Rome," Mr. and Mrs. Hartland may, for all we can tell to the contrary, have suppressed their own inclination to accommodate their manners and habits to the fashion of those amongst whom they dwelt. Certain it is that, from whatever cause it proceeded, there was an abstinence from books at Henbury till the birth of Algernon Robinson Goodman Hartland, and though his father had gone through school and university, and his mother played well enough for carpet dancers, sang a little, painted birds and flowers on velvet, and worked like a Moravian, neither the one or the other found time, amid the multiplicity of their daily pursuits, for reading.

The revolution which was effected by the little stranger's arrival was therefore the more striking. Every thing now was made subservient to the one great leading object. During the first year after this agreeable surprise, Henbury appeared a temple dedicated to Lucina, in which all the insignia of a new birth were displayed in cradle and pillows, saucepans and panada, blankets and wraps. Whichever way the eye were turned, the present deity of the place reigned from the attic to the basement story; and all distinct purposes, and applications of the several apartments were set aside for a season, to render the dwelling a universal nursery. Then came on the time of go-carts and corals; and every publication on teething, vaccination, and each disease to which infant flesh is heir, poured from the press by all the coaches, as if authors and printers were in league to pay their court to Mr. and Mrs. Hartland.

Three years passed away, and with them the scaffolding which, becoming unnecessary, was now thrown aside. The young Algernon, who, it must be confessed, was beautiful as we are taught to believe the little god of love, happily surmounted the host of enemies who take their stand at the entrance-gate of life to oppose the mortal wayfarer, and was the admiration of all beholders, as well as the centre of all joy and pride to his parents. He was a child of extraordinary loveliness and most noble bearing; and fortunately for him his father and mother had often remarked, that the peasant children were a healthier race than the offspring of a higher class, which procured for him the inestimable privilege of breathing fresh air, and exercising his little limbs out of doors.

The cares of home became gradually so engrossing as to wean Mr. and Mrs. Hartland from the social circle, of which they had hitherto been the chief pillar and support, in their neighbourhood. They were now employed from morning till night in studying plans of education, mooting the comparative merits and demerits of schools, canvassing the question of public and private instruction, discussing the respective characters of Oxford and Cambridge, and laying schemes for futurity, as though time were to have no end.

The natural consequence of these things was a considerable loss of popularity. People began to think both Mr. and Mrs. Hartland, who had been prime and general favourites, grown dull and selfish, forgetting that it was selfishness which passed the rigorous decree in adjudging that disagreeable quality to them. Mrs. Hartland, who never till now talked of books, soon obtained the opprobrious appellation of a Blue, and all Miss Ferret's efforts were unavailing to conciliate those who could not bear to think that the Hartlands were happy enough to do without them.

Jemima, however, though she did her best to obtain forgiveness for her friends, did not fail to warn them in private of their improvidence. "Out of sight out of mind," was an apothegm which she urged with reiterated pathos, to deter the inhabitants of Henbury from renouncing the world, which she assured them "could not be drawn on and off like a glove." Nothing, in fact, could be more hostile to Miss Ferret's views than divisions and schisms, which, by splitting a neighbourhood into parties, diminished its general hospitality; or those withdrawings from society through sickness or sorrow, which lessened the gregarious tendencies of the people amongst whom she lived. We may therefore give her full credit for not leaving, as she herself expressed it, "a stone unturned" to bring our pair of recluses to reason, and induce them to seek their felicity where she found her own, namely, in the festive coterie. But Mrs. Hartland in the course of her new studies had, some how or other, stumbled upon the remarkable sentence which Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, when a boy, wrote with a pencil at the bottom of a map of Riga, demonstrative of those talents which were one day to astonish the world: "Dieu me l'a donnée et le diable ne me l'otera pas," and with maternal energy she replied in these celebrated words, intimating by their appropriation to her own case, the same heroic resolutions which inspired the Swede, to preserve that which had been granted to _her_ arms.

"My dear Jemima," added she, unconsciously drawing up her head as she spoke, "there is nothing easier than for people to talk who are not mothers. I cannot perform by halves, the momentous duty which it has pleased heaven to devolve upon me. The sacred task can only be fulfilled by an entire devotion, and we must give ourselves up to the faithful discharge of this awful trust. Lady Goodman, too, has never known what it is to be a mother (raising her head still higher); and really, my dear, it is impossible, even for the best intentioned of one's friends who are _inexperienced_, to enter into the tremendous responsibilities of a parent."

"No, thank heaven," answered Miss Ferret; "I know only by hearsay of the great pangs and perils, through the martyrdom of which you boast your new title; though our curate Mr. Pew, who had been but just appointed before your confinement, seeing me at your side when I accompanied you to the communion-table, stupidly churched me also, and gave me a share in all your thanksgivings for a son and heir. But depend upon it, my dear friend, that you will be tired of all this sort of thing by and by, and wish that you had not affronted your neighbours. Remember, after all said and done, that there cannot be any _great_ distinction in bringing a bantling into the world, when every beggar-woman in the parish has a troop at her heels. Your child will fare the better for not being thought so much of. I always say that 'the watched pot never boils,' and people are constantly disappointed themselves, besides being intolerable to others, when they make too great a fuss about any thing that belongs to them."

Mrs. Hartland was deeply offended, and thus ended an intercourse which had ceased to please on either side, and the _go-between_ quitted Henbury and its inhabitants for ever, enlisting herself from that moment amongst the most active of the oppositionists, who ridiculed their folly and resented their pretensions.

Matters proceeded in this train till our once social pair had scarcely a neighbour with whom they interchanged the usual hospitalities. They were, however, so absorbed by their domestic interests, that no void was felt, and the only serious grief which disturbed their happiness was the want of a companion about his own age for their idol Algernon, who improved in beauty as he advanced in growth, and gave evidence of talents at five years old which might have been deemed uncommon at double that age.

As may be imagined, Algernon experienced the very worst effects of the spoiling system. Every possible error in education seemed likely to lend its aid in making the child selfish, and the man, if he lived to become one, insignificant and disagreeable. Mrs. Hartland read every treatise which had ever been published on her favourite theme, and endeavoured to put every theory in practice. Like all late converts to any thing from its opposite, she was mad upon the subject of reading. Literature, next to the love of young Algernon, became her ruling passion, and the most tiresome pedantry of language succeeded her natural manner of expressing herself. Exercising a limited capacity on topics new to her understanding, and often above its calibre, our good dame's mind became the strangest mass that could be conceived of ill-digested systems, the principles of which she could not comprehend, but the practical results of which, however contradictory, she attempted to realize. Algernon was to be a miracle of early knowledge; yet his mind was not to be over-wrought. He was to be a prodigy of courage, while every living animal was banished from his presence, lest any injury should reach the child. Of self-denial he was to be a shining example, because Mrs. Hartland found that quality much insisted upon in the works which were now her chief delight; but at the same time her son's spirit was not to be broken by opposition, nor his temper soured by contradiction. From this specimen it is easy to judge of the whole, and the reader has no need of further insight into the chaos which we have sufficiently described.

Mr. Hartland, though Greek and Latin had been driven into his cranium, and he was rather proud of his skill in prosody, was a person of still flatter intellect than his wife. Constitutional indolence also added lead to the dullness of his faculties. It is therefore not to be wondered at, that, mistaking his fair partner's activity for genius, and her dictatorial harangues, delivered in words, each of which was as long as a tape-worm, for the profoundest wisdom; he honestly believed that Minerva herself had stepped down from her niche in the celestial Pantheon, to assume the outward similitude of his better half.

Now it so happened that, about the period of which we are speaking, a monstrous quarto, with prodigious margins, which professed to impart the newest and most approved method of teaching the young idea how to shoot like a vine along the march of modern intellect, arrived at Henbury-lodge. Mrs. Hartland flew at the prize, and disinterring the volume from the superincumbent mass of brown paper and twine by which it was environed, hastened to her sanctum, and opening at random, after the manner of the Virgilian lots, she chanced to light upon the following paragraph, which struck upon her eye and understanding as especially directed to her peculiar case:

"Nothing is more essential to the healthful developement of infant mind, than congenial society. A child should associate with his _fellows_, and while the bodily organs are kept in wholesome exercise, the mental energies are thus directed to the natural objects of childish pursuit. To this end children should be allowed to consort together, and exhibit the true bearings of individual character, uncontrolled by the bias which is given to youth by a constant and injurious companionship with adults. In fine, a child should always be provided with at least one playmate of his own age."

This paragraph rested on the mother's mind, and was the Mordecai of her peace. Her intercourse with the neighbouring gentry was reduced to an occasional exchange of morning visits, which afforded no opportunity of introducing her boy to the children of her acquaintance, and there seemed to be no probability of his having brother or sister with whom to associate at home. In this dilemma Mrs. Hartland often turned in her mind the temporary adoption of a peasant-child, who might serve the desired purpose; but as frequently rejected the idea, through dread of vulgar habits and low thoughts coming in contact with the mind of her son.

While anxiously ruminating on what was best to be done, it happened that Mr. Ackland, a gentleman who lived a few miles distant from Henbury, called to enquire for the family, and in the course of conversation of that miscellaneous kind which morning visits usually supply, turned to Mrs. Hartland, and asked whether she had been to Hazle-moor?

"Why to that desolate heath?" replied she. "I should not prefer a drive to Hazle-moor for any beauty which that part of the country can boast."

"No," said Mr. Ackland, "the landscape is certainly not very alluring; but you have heard of the lovely little Spaniard. Have you not?"

"I have not the least idea of what you allude to," answered Mrs. Hartland. "What Spaniard do you speak of?"

"Oh!" replied Mr. Ackland, "I thought that every one within a circuit of twenty miles at least had heard of our beautiful infant stranger. It is upwards of a week since a troop of gipsies appeared upon Hazle-moor, and there they might have held their station ever since without exciting particular attention, were it not for the extraordinary perfections of a child, who has in some mysterious manner fallen into their hands. Two or three portrait-painters have already come to take likenesses of the fascinating little creature; and the wild community to which she belongs having discovered the profit which may be realized through her means, are daily making money by exhibiting the symmetry of her baby-form to all who are prompted by curiosity to visit this tiny enchantress."

"Who is she?" said Mrs. Hartland.

"That is precisely the question which every body asks, and none can answer," replied Mr. Ackland. "If her owners are acquainted with her parentage, they do not choose to tell more than that they purchased her from a soldier's wife, who seemed a worthless sort of person. Her little mantle, hat, and plume, together with her country's dialect, proclaim the land which gave her birth. She speaks fluently, though with lisping tongue, and calls herself Zoé, as the nearest approximation which she can make to the more difficult pronunciation of Zorilda, which is the name she bears."

"Dear babe!" exclaimed Mrs. Hartland, "what will become of her?"

"Alas!" said Mr. Ackland, "the parents who have been robbed of such a child are objects of one's tenderest commiseration; and as to the little one herself, it is but too easy to foretell that her course cannot prosper. She is now only three years old or thereabouts; and for a short time to come may not imbibe the poison of personal flattery, but a race of vanity will terminate in destruction. Were I not the father of a family, and fearful of introducing perhaps the murderer of future repose amongst my children by bringing a dangerous non-descript under my roof, I would certainly purchase Zorilda from her present possessors, and take her home to Newlands, in the hope of being able to restore her some day or other to her relations. Yet, on the other hand, she may be the property of people who are not desirous to reclaim her, and might entail a weighty responsbility on my head. Such a romantic importation into my household could not fail of working mischief in the fulness of time, and therefore I have resolved silencing all the _yearnings_ of impulse; but I recommend both you and Mr. Hartland to go and see her, as the wandering group who are intent on showing her to all who will pay them for the sight, will speedily pack up in all probability for some other scene."

A sudden thought, which she refrained from promulging, darted across the mind of Mrs. Hartland, and she pondered intently on what had fallen from Mr. Ackland till the following day, when, ordering her carriage immediately after breakfast, she set out, accompanied by her husband, young Algernon, and his nurse, for Hazle-moor.