What Will He Do With It, Book 5.

may sometimes have very small experien

t be his wish for secrecy; pretty story it would be for Humberston, its future rector learning how to preach a sermon from an old basketmaker! But he had a nobler and more i

strict retirement. George saw too little of this clergyman, either to let out secrets or pick up information. From him, however, George did incidentally learn that Waife had some months previously visited the village, and proposed to the bailiff to take the cottage and osier land, which he now rented; that he represented himself as having known an old basketmaker who had dwelt there many years ago, and as having learned the basket craft of that long deceased operative. As he offered a higher rent than the bailiff could elsewhere obtain, and as the bailiff was desirous to get credit with Mr. Carr Vipont for improving the property, by reviving thereon an art which had fallen into desuetude, the bargain was struck, provided the candidate, being a stranger to the place, could furnish the bailiff with any satisfactory reference. Waife had gone away, saying he should shortly return with the requisite testimonial. In fact, poor man, as we know, he was then counting on a good word from Mr. Hartopp. He had not, however, returned for some months. The cottage, having been meanwhile wanted for the temporary occupation of an under-gamekeeper, while his own was under repair, fortunately remained unlet. Waife, on returning, accompanied by his little girl, had referred the bailiff to a respectable house-agent and collector of street rents in Bloomsbury, who wrote word that a lady, then a

not seem quite in keeping with it,-outlandish in short,-but principally by the fact that he had received since his arrival two letters with a foreign postmark. The idea befriended the old man,-allowing it to be inferred that he had probably outlived

seen Mr. Hartopp, who was rather out of sorts, his good heart not having recovered the shock of having been abominably "taken in" by an impostor for whom he had conceived a great fancy, and to whose discovery George himself had providentially led (the father referred here to what George had told him of his first meeting with Waife, and his visit to Mrs. Crane); the impostor, it seemed, from what Mr. Hartopp let fall, not being a little queer in the head, as George had been led to surmise, but a very bad character. "In fact," added the elder Morley, "a character so bad that Mr. Hartopp was too glad to give up to her lawful protectors the child, whom the m

sh border-song. The deer lifted his antlers from the water, and turned his large bright eyes towards the opposite bank, whence the note came, listening and wistful. As George's step crushed the wild thyme, which the thorn-tree shadowed, "Hush!" said Waife, "and mark how the rudest musical sound can affect the brute creation." He resumed the whistle,-a clearer, louder, wilder tune,-that of a l

ith that reserved and unsocial water-rat, on whom Sir Isaac in vain endeavours at present to force his acquaintance. Man commits a great mistake in not cultivating more intimate and amicable relation

r noticed marked differences of

we should soon have diplomatic relations with them; and our despatches and newspapers would instruct us to a T in the characters and propensities of their leading personages. But, where man has no pecuniary nor ambitious interests at stake in his commerce with any class of his fellow-creatures, his information about them is extremely confused and superficial. The best naturalist

ound another Shakspeare, he might be better employed, like his predec

t whether such an investigator would be better employed in reference to his own happiness, though I grant that he would

dissects. That is not necessary to genius. The judge on his bench, summing up evidence and charging the jury, has no need t

ndividual heart, I repeat, he knows nothing. Did he know, law and circumstances might vanish, human justice would be paralyzed. Ho, there! place that swart-visaged, ill-looking foreigner in the dock, and let counsel open the case; hear the witnesses depose! Oh, horrible wretch! a murderer! unmanly murdere

t which the convicted Moor gathers round himself at the close of the sublime drama. Even Sir Isaac was startled; and leaving

be the cause, see at least, Mr. Morley, one reason why a poor creature like myself finds it better employment to cultivate the intimacy of brutes than to prosecute the study of men. Among men, all are too high to sympathize with me; but I have known two friends who never injured nor betrayed. Sir Isaac is o

Mr. Waife, I fear that men mus

ill to myself. When a man is his own enemy, he is very un

elieved. It was clear then, I thought, that your grandchild had been left to your care unmolested, either that you had proved not to be the person of whom the parties were in search, or family affairs had been so explained and reconciled that my interference had occasioned you no harm. But to-day I have a letter from my father which disquiets me much. It seems

to drop all communication with a man of attainted character, before you had learned how to manage the powers that will enable you hereafter to exhort sinners worse than I have been. Hush, sir! you feel that, at least now, I am an inoffensive old man, labouring for a humble livelihood. You wi

d the Oxonian, gasping and stammering fearfully as he caug

n Waife's shoulder, and looking him full and close in the face, said thus, slowly, deliberately, not a stammer, "You do not guess what you have done for me; you have secured to me a home and a career; the wife of whom I must otherwise have despaired; the Divine Vocation on which all my earthly hopes we

e which you should not, howover, measure by its effects on yourself, but by the sligh

epent and unfeignedly believe? Oh, Mr. Waife! if in earlier days you have sinned, do you not repent? and how often, in many a lovely gentle sentence dropped unawares from your lips, have I had cause to know that you unfeignedly believe! Were I now clothed with sacred authority, could I not a

also is a man infinitely charitable, benevolent, kindly, and, through all his simplicity, acutely shrewd; Mr. Hartopp, on hearing what was said against me, deemed me unfit to retain my grand

ive me that I spoke to you of repentance as if you had been guilty. I feel you are innocent,-feel it by my own heart. You turn away. I defy you to say that you are guilty of what has b

ed voiceless

nd preacher,-qualities which grasp the results of argument, and arrive at the end of elaborate reasoning by sudden impulse,-here releas

, I now extend this hand to you. If, as man and gentleman, you have done that which, could all hearts be read, all secrets known, human judgment reversed by Divine omniscience, forbids you to take this hand,-then reject it, go hence: we part! But if no such

took, as if irresistibly, the hand held out to him. And the s

you have taken will never betray, never desert; but is it-is i

mire. Learn that it is not only impossible for me to clear myself, but that it is equally impossible for me to confide to mortal being a single plea in defence if I am innocent, in extenuation if I a

calm in the knowledge that no false witnesses can mislead the Eternal Judge? Respect you! yes,-because I hav

n; we are in the home of all others I most longed for; and that woman, yes, I can, at least, thus far, confide to you my secrets, so that you may not blame yourself for sending her to Gatesboro',-that very woman knows of my shelter; furnished me with the very reference necessary to obtain it; has freed my grandchild from a loathsome bondage, which I could not have legally resisted; and should new persecutions chase us will watch and warn and help us. And if you ask me how this change in her was effected; how, when we had abandoned all hope of green fields,

e given up to the care of a father. I guess! of that father you would not speak ill to me; yet from that fathe

to sing! But we had not been here a week when song broke out from her,- untaught, as from a bird. But if any ill report of me travel

s and gentle-hearted she is. I will speak of you to her,-oh! do not look alarmed. She will take my word when I tell her, 'That is a go

cannot guess how I long, how I yearn, to view that child under the holy fostering eyes of a woman. Perhaps if Lady Montfort saw my pretty Sophy she might take a fancy to her. Oh, if she did! if she did! And Sophy," added Waife, proudly, "has a right to respect. She is not like me,-any hovel is good enough for me; but for her! Do you know that I conceived that hope, that the hope helped to lead me back here when, months ago, I was at Humberston, intent upon rescuing Sophy; and saw-though," observed Waife, with a sly twitch of the muscles round his mouth, "I had no right at that precise moment to be seeing anything-Lady Montfort's humane fear for a

row,-pithy and most profound sentence; intimating the irrefragable claim that binds men to the Father. And when the chain tightens,