Kenelm Chillingly | Page 2

and (though Sir Peter was a much younger man than
himself, and as healthy as any man well can be) had made his
expectations of a speedy succession unpleasantly conspicuous. He had
refused his consent to a small exchange of lands with a neighbouring
squire, by which Sir Peter would have obtained some good arable land,
for an outlying unprofitable wood that produced nothing but fagots and
rabbits, with the blunt declaration that he, the heir-at-law, was fond of
rabbit-shooting, and that the wood would be convenient to him next
season if he came into the property by that time, which he very possibly
might. He disputed Sir Peter's right to make his customary fall of
timber, and had even threatened him with a bill in Chancery on that
subject. In short, this heir-at-law was exactly one of those persons to
spite whom a landed proprietor would, if single, marry at the age of
eighty in the hope of a family.
Nor was it only on account of his very natural wish to frustrate the
expectations of this unamiable relation that Sir Peter Chillingly
lamented the absence of the little stranger. Although belonging to that
class of country gentlemen to whom certain political reasoners deny the
intelligence vouchsafed to other members of the community, Sir Peter
was not without a considerable degree of book-learning and a great
taste for speculative philosophy. He sighed for a legitimate inheritor to
the stores of his erudition, and, being a very benevolent man, for a
more active and useful dispenser of those benefits to the human race
which philosophers confer by striking hard against each other; just as,
how full soever of sparks a flint may be, they might lurk concealed in
the flint till doomsday, if the flint were not hit by the steel. Sir Peter, in
short, longed for a son amply endowed with the combative quality, in
which he himself was deficient, but which is the first essential to all
seekers after renown, and especially to benevolent philosophers.
Under these circumstances one may well conceive the joy that filled the
household of Exmundham and extended to all the tenantry on that
venerable estate, by whom the present possessor was much beloved and

the prospect of an heir-at-law with a special eye to the preservation of
rabbits much detested, when the medical attendant of the Chillinglys
declared that 'her ladyship was in an interesting way;' and to what
height that joy culminated when, in due course of time, a male baby
was safely entbroned in his cradle. To that cradle Sir Peter was
summoned. He entered the room with a lively bound and a radiant
countenance: he quitted it with a musing step and an overclouded brow.
Yet the baby was no monster. It did not come into the world with two
heads, as some babies are said to have done; it was formed as babies
are in general; was on the whole a thriving baby, a fine baby.
Nevertheless, its aspect awed the father as already it had awed the nurse.
The creature looked so unutterably solemn. It fixed its eyes upon Sir
Peter with a melancholy reproachful stare; its lips were compressed and
drawn downward as if discontentedly meditating its future destinies.
The nurse declared in a frightened whisper that it had uttered no cry on
facing the light. It had taken possession of its cradle in all the dignity of
silent sorrow. A more saddened and a more thoughtful countenance a
human being could not exhibit if he were leaving the world instead of
entering it.
"Hem!" said Sir Peter to himself on regaining the solitude of his library;
"a philosopher who contributes a new inhabitant to this vale of tears
takes upon himself very anxious responsibilities--"
At that moment the joy-bells rang out from the neighbouring church
tower, the summer sun shone into the windows, the bees hummed
among the flowers on the lawn. Sir Peter roused himself and looked
forth, "After all," said he, cheerily, "the vale of tears is not without a
smile."
CHAPTER II.
A FAMILY council was held at Exmundham Hall to deliberate on the
name by which this remarkable infant should be admitted into the
Christian community. The junior branches of that ancient house
consisted, first, of the obnoxious heir-at-law--a Scotch branch named

Chillingly Gordon. He was the widowed father of one son, now of the
age of three, and happily unconscious of the injury inflicted on his
future prospects by the advent of the new-born, which could not be
truthfully said of his Caledonian father. Mr. Chillingly Gordon was one
of those men who get on in the world with out our being able to
discover why. His parents died in his infancy and left him nothing; but
the family interest procured him an