A YOUNG viscount with income and person cannot lie _perdu_ three miles from Edinburgh.
First one discovers him, then another, then twenty, then all the world, as the whole clique is modestly called.
Before, however, Lord Ipsden was caught, he had acquired a browner tint, a more elastic step, and a stouter heart.
The Aberford prescription had done wonders for him.
He caught himself passing one whole day without thinking of Lady Barbara Sinclair.
But even Aberford had misled him; there were no adventures to be found in the Firth of Forth; most of the days there was no wind to speak of; twice it blew great guns, and the men were surprised at his lordship going out, but nobody was in any danger except himself; the fishermen had all slipped into port before matters were serious.
He found the merchantmen that could sail creeping on with three reefs in their mainsail; and the Dutchmen lying to and breasting it, like ducks in a pond, and with no more chance of harm.
On one of these occasions he did observe a little steam-tug, going about a knot an hour, and rolling like a washing-tub. He ran down to her, and asked if he could assist her; she answered, through the medium of a sooty animal at her helm, that she was (like our universities) "satisfied with her own progress"; she added, being under intoxication, "that, if any danger existed, her scheme was to drown it in the bo-o-owl;" and two days afterward he saw her puffing and panting, and fiercely dragging a gigantic three-decker out into deep water, like an industrious flea pulling his phaeton.
And now it is my office to relate how Mr. Flucker Johnstone comported himself on one occasion.
As the yacht worked alongside Granton Pier, before running out, the said Flucker calmly and scientifically drew his lordship's attention to three points:
The direction of the wind--the force of the wind--and his opinion, as a person experienced in the Firth, that it was going to be worse instead of better; in reply, he received an order to step forward to his place in the cutter--the immediate vicinity of the jib-boom. On this, Mr. Flucker instantly burst into tears.
His lordship, or, as Flucker called him ever since the yacht came down, "the skipper," deeming that the higher appellation, inquired, with some surprise, what was the matter with the boy.
One of the crew, who, by the by, squinted, suggested, "It was a slight illustration of the passion of fear."
Flucker confirmed the theory by gulping out: "We'll never see Newhaven again."
On this the skipper smiled, and ordered him ashore, somewhat peremptorily.
Straightway he began to howl, and, saying, "It was better to be drowned than be the laughing-stock of the place," went forward to his place; on his safe return to port, this young gentleman was very severe on open boats, which, he said "bred womanish notions in hearts naturally dauntless. Give me a lid to the pot," added he, "and I'll sail with Old Nick, let the wind blow high or low."
The Aberford was wrong when he called love a cutaneous disorder.
There are cutaneous disorders that take that name, but they are no more love than verse is poetry;
Than patriotism is love of country;
Than theology is religion;
Than science is philosophy;
Than paintings are pictures;
Than reciting on the boards is acting;
Than physic is medicine Than bread is bread, or gold gold--in shops.
Love is a state of being; the beloved object is our center; and our thoughts, affections, schemes and selves move but round it.
We may diverge hither or thither, but the golden thread still holds us.
Is fair or dark beauty the fairest? The world cannot decide; but love shall decide in a moment.
A halo surrounds her we love, and makes beautiful to us her movements, her looks, her virtues, her faults, her nonsense, her affectation and herself; and that's love, doctor!
Lord Ipsden was capable of loving like this; but, to do Lady Barbara justice, she had done much to freeze the germ of noble passion; she had not killed, but she had benumbed it.
"Saunders," said Lord Ipsden, one morning after breakfast, "have you entered everything in your diary?"
"Yes, my lord."
"All these good people's misfortunes?"
"Yes, my lord."
"Do you think you have spelled their names right?"
"Where it was impossible, my lord, I substituted an English appellation, hidentical in meaning."
"Have you entered and described my first interview with Christie Johnstone, and somebody something?"
"Most minutely, my lord."
"How I turned Mr. Burke into poetry--how she listened with her eyes all glistening--how they made me talk--how she dropped a tear, he! he! he! at the death of the first baron--how shocked she was at the king striking him when he was dying, to make a knight-banneret of the poor old fellow?"
"Your lordship will find all the particulars exactly related," said Saunders, with dry pomp.
"How she found out that titles are but breath--how I answered--some nonsense?"
"Your lordship will find all the topics included."
"How she took me for a madman? And you for a prig?"
"The latter circumstance eluded my memory, my lord."
"But when I told her I must relieve only one poor person by day, she took my hand."
"Your lordship will find all the items realized in this book, my lord."
"What a beautiful book!"
"Alba are considerably ameliorated, my lord."
"Alba?"
"Plural of album, my lord," explained the refined factotum, "more delicate, I conceive, than the vulgar reading."
Viscount Ipsden read from "MR. SAUNDERS'S ALBUM.
"To illustrate the inelegance of the inferior classes, two juvenile venders of the piscatory tribe were this day ushered in, and instantaneously, without the accustomed preliminaries, plunged into a familiar conversation with Lord Viscount Ipsden.
"Their vulgarity, shocking and repulsive to myself, appeared to afford his lordship a satisfaction greater than he derives from the graceful amenities of fashionable association--"
~ "Saunders, I suspect you of something."
"Me, my lord!"
"Yes. Writing in an annual."
