“Oh dear!” said the old lady. “How happy you do make us when you tell us that, to be sure!”
“I tell you ma’am,” said Mr. Witherden, “what I think as an honest man, which, as the poet observes, is the noblest work of God. I agree with the poet in every particular ma’am. The mountainous Alps on the one hand, or a hummingbird on the other, is nothing, in point of workmanship, to an honest man—or woman—or woman.”
“Anything that Mr. Witherden can say of me,” observed a small quiet voice, “I can say with interest of him, I am sure.”
“It’s a happy circumstance, a truly happy circumstance,” said the Notary, “to happen too upon his eight-and-twentieth birthday, and I hope I know how to appreciate it. I trust, Mr. Garland my dear sir, that we may mutually congratulate each other upon this auspicious occasion.”
To this the old gentleman replied that he felt assured they might. There appeared to be another shaking of hands in consequence, and when it was over, the old gentleman said that though he said it who should not, he believed no son had ever been a greater comfort to his parents than Abel Garland had been to his.
“Marrying as his mother and I did, late in life sir, after waiting for a great many years until we were well enough off—coming together when we were no longer young, and then being blessed with one child who has always been dutiful and affectionate—why, it’s a source of great happiness to us both sir.”
“Of course it is, I have no doubt of it,” returned the notary in a sympathising voice. “It’s the contemplation of this sort of thing, that makes me deplore my fate in being a bachelor. There was a young lady once sir, the daughter of an outfitting warehouse of the first respectability—but that’s a weakness. Chuckster, bring in Mr. Abel’s articles.”
“You see Mr. Witherden,” said the old lady, “that Abel has not been brought up like the run of young men. He has always had a pleasure in our society, and always been with us. Abel has never been absent from us, for a day; has he my dear?”
“Never, my dear,” returned the old gentleman, “except when he went to Margate one Saturday with Mr. Tomkinley that had been a teacher at that school he went to, and came back upon the Monday; but he was very ill after that you remember, my dear; it was quite a dissipation.”
“He was not used to it you know,” said the old lady, “and he couldn’t bear it, that’s the truth. Besides he had no comfort in being there without us, and had nobody to talk to or enjoy himself with.”
“That was it you know,” interposed the same small quiet voice that had spoken once before. “I was quite abroad mother, quite desolate, and to think that the sea was between us—oh I never shall forget what I felt when I first thought that the sea was between us!”
“Very natural under the circumstances,” observed the notary. “Mr. Abel’s feelings did credit to his nature, and credit to your nature ma’am, and his father’s nature, and human nature. I trace the same current now, flowing through all his quiet and unobtrusive proceedings.—I am about to sign my name, you observe, at the foot of the articles which Mr. Chuckster will witness; and, placing my finger upon this blue wafer with the vandyked corners, I am constrained to remark in a distinct tone of voice—don’t be alarmed ma’am, it is merely a form of law—that I deliver this, as my act and deed. Mr. Abel will place his name against the other wafer, repeating the same cabalistic words, and the business is over. Ha ha ha! You see how easily these things are done!”
There was a short silence, apparently, while Mr. Abel went through the prescribed form, and then the shaking of hands and shuffling of feet were renewed, and shortly afterwards there was a clinking of wineglasses and a great talkativeness on the part of everybody. In about a quarter of an hour Mr. Chuckster (with a pen behind his ear and his face inflamed with wine) appeared at the door, and condescending to address Kit by the jocose appellation of “Young Snob,” informed him that the visitors were coming out.
Out they came forthwith; Mr. Witherden, who was short, chubby, fresh-coloured, brisk, and pompous, leading the old lady with extreme politeness, and the father and son following them, arm in arm. Mr. Abel, who had a quaint old-fashioned air about him, looked nearly of the same age as his father, and bore a wonderful resemblance to him in face and figure, though wanting something of his full, round, cheerfulness, and substituting in its place a timid reserve. In all other respects, in the neatness of the dress, and even in the clubfoot, he and the old gentleman were precisely alike.
Having seen the old lady safely in her seat, and assisted in the arrangement of her cloak and a small basket which formed an indispensable portion of her equipage, Mr. Abel got into a little box behind which had evidently been made for his express accommodation, and smiled at everybody present by turns, beginning with his mother and ending with the pony. There was then a great to-do to make the pony hold up his head that the bearing-rein might be fastened; at last even this was effected; and the old gentleman, taking his seat and the reins, put his hand in his pocket to find a sixpence for Kit.
He had no sixpences,
