Crotchet Castle. Thomas Love Peacock

into the Ellesmere canal, where we shall be among the mountains of North Wales; which we may climb or not, as we think proper; but we will, at any rate, keep our floating hotel well provisioned, and we will try to settle all the questions over which a shadow of doubt yet hangs in the world of philosophy.

      Mr. Firedamp.—Out of my great friendship for you, I will certainly go; but I do not expect to survive the experiment.

      The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Alter erit tum Tiphys, et altera quæ vehat Argo Delectos Heroas. I will be of the party, though I must hire an officiating curate, and deprive poor dear Mrs. Folliott, for several weeks, of the pleasure of combing my wig.

      Lord Bossnowl.—I hope, if I am to be of the party, our ship is not to be the ship of fools: He! he!

      The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—If you are one of the party, sir, it most assuredly will not: Ha! ha!

      Lord Bossnowl.—Pray sir, what do you mean by Ha! ha!?

      The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Precisely, sir, what you mean by He! he!

      Mr. Mac Quedy.—You need not dispute about terms; they are two modes of expressing merriment, with or without reason; reason being in no way essential to mirth. No man should ask another why he laughs, or at what, seeing that he does not always know, and that, if he does, he is not a responsible agent. Laughter is an involuntary action of certain muscles, developed in the human species by the progress of civilisation. The savage never laughs.

      The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—No, sir, he has nothing to laugh at. Give him Modern Athens, the “learned friend,” and the Steam Intellect Society. They will develop his muscles.

CHAPTER III.

       THE ROMAN CAMP.

       Table of Contents

      He loved her more then seven yere,

       Yet was he of her love never the nere;

       He was not ryche of golde and fe,

       A gentyll man forsoth was he.

      The Squyr of Lowe Degre.

      The Reverend Doctor Folliott having promised to return to dinner, walked back to his vicarage, meditating whether he should pass the morning in writing his next sermon, or in angling for trout, and had nearly decided in favour of the latter proposition, repeating to himself, with great unction, the lines of Chaucer:

      And as for me, though that I can but lite,

       On bokis for to read I me delite,

       And to ’hem yeve I faithe and full credence,

       And in mine herte have ’hem in reverence,

       So hertily, that there is gamé none,

       That fro my bokis makith me to gone,

       But it be seldome, on the holie daie;

       Save certainly whan that the month of Maie

       Is cousin, and I here the foulis sing,

       And that the flouris ginnin for to spring,

       Farwell my boke and my devocion:

      when his attention was attracted by a young gentleman who was sitting on a camp stool with a portfolio on his knee, taking a sketch of the Roman Camp, which, as has been already said, was within the enclosed domain of Mr. Crotchet. The young stranger, who had climbed over the fence, espying the portly divine, rose up, and hoped that he was not trespassing. “By no means, sir,” said the divine, “all the arts and sciences are welcome here; music, painting, and poetry; hydrostatics and political economy; meteorology, transcendentalism, and fish for breakfast.”

      The Stranger.—A pleasant association, sir, and a liberal and discriminating hospitality. This is an old British camp, I believe, sir?

      The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Roman, sir; Roman; undeniably Roman. The vallum is past controversy. It was not a camp, sir, a castrum, but a castellum, a little camp, or watch-station, to which was attached, on the peak of the adjacent hill, a beacon for transmitting alarms. You will find such here and there, all along the range of chalk hills, which traverses the country from north-east to south-west, and along the base of which runs the ancient Iknield road, whereof you may descry a portion in that long straight white line.

      The Stranger.—I beg your pardon, sir; do I understand this place to be your property?

      The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—It is not mine, sir: the more is the pity; yet is it so far well, that the owner is my good friend, and a highly respectable gentleman.

      The Stranger.—Good and respectable, sir, I take it, means rich?

      The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—That is their meaning, sir.

      The Stranger.—I understand the owner to be a Mr. Crotchet. He has a handsome daughter, I am told.

      The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—He has, sir. Her eyes are like the fish-pools of Heshbon, by the gate of Bethrabbim; and she is to have a handsome fortune, to which divers disinterested gentlemen are paying their addresses. Perhaps you design to be one of them?

      The Stranger.—No, sir; I beg pardon if my questions seem impertinent; I have no such design. There is a son too, I believe, sir, a great and successful blower of bubbles?

      The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—A hero, sir, in his line. Never did angler in September hook more gudgeons.

      The Stranger.—To say the truth, two very amiable young people, with whom I have some little acquaintance, Lord Bossnowl, and his sister, Lady Clarinda, are reported to be on the point of concluding a double marriage with Miss Crotchet and her brother; by way of putting a new varnish on old nobility. Lord Foolincourt, their father, is terribly poor for a lord who owns a borough.

      The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Well, sir, the Crotchets have plenty of money, and the old gentleman’s weak point is a hankering after high blood. I saw your acquaintance, Lord Bossnowl, this morning, but I did not see his sister. She may be there, nevertheless, and doing fashionable justice to this fine May morning, by lying in bed till noon.

      The Stranger.—Young Mr. Crotchet, sir, has been, like his father, the architect of his own fortune, has he not? An illustrious example of the reward of honesty and industry?

      The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—As to honesty, sir, he made his fortune in the city of London, and if that commodity be of any value there, you will find it in the price current. I believe it is below par, like the shares of young Crotchet’s fifty companies. But his progress has not been exactly like his father’s. It has been more rapid, and he started with more advantages. He began with a fine capital from his father. The old gentleman divided his fortune into three not exactly equal portions; one for himself, one for his daughter, and one for his son, which he handed over to him, saying, “Take it once for all, and make the most of it; if you lose it where I won it, not another stiver do you get from me during my life.” But, sir, young Crotchet doubled, and trebled, and quadrupled it, and is, as you say, a striking example of the reward of industry; not that I think his labour has been so great as his luck.

      The Stranger.—But, sir, is all this solid? is there no danger of reaction? no day of reckoning to cut down in an hour prosperity that has grown up like a mushroom?

      The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Nay, sir, I know not. I do not pry into these matters. I am, for my own part, very well satisfied with the young gentleman. Let those who are not so look to themselves. It is quite enough for me that he came down last night from London, and that he had the good sense to bring with him a basket of lobsters. Sir, I wish you a good morning.

      The stranger having returned the reverend gentleman’s good morning, resumed his sketch, and was intently employed on it when Mr. Crotchet made his appearance with Mr. Mac Quedy and Mr. Skionar, whom