Night and Morning | Page 7

better. Smith!"
"Yes, sir!"
"You have often said that you should like, if you had some capital, to
settle in Australia. Your father is an excellent farmer; you are above the
situation you hold with me; you are well educated, and have some
knowledge of agriculture; you can scarcely fail to make a fortune as a
settler; and if you are of the same mind still, why, look you, I have just
L1000. at my bankers: you shall have half, if you like to sail by the first
packet."
"Oh, sir, you are too generous."
"Nonsense--no thanks--I am more prudent than generous; for I agree
with you that it is all up with me if my uncle gets hold of you. I dread
my prying brother, too; in fact, the obligation is on my side; only stay
abroad till I am a rich man, and my marriage made public, and then you
may ask of me what you will. It's agreed, then; order the horses, we'll
go round by Liverpool, and learn about the vessels. By the way, my
good fellow, I hope you see nothing now of that good-for-nothing
brother of yours?"
"No, indeed, sir. It's a thousand pities he has turned out so ill; for he

was the cleverest of the family, and could always twist me round his
little finger."
"That's the very reason I mentioned him. If he learned our secret, he
would take it to an excellent market. Where is he?"
"Hiding, I suspect, sir."
"Well, we shall put the sea between you and him! So now all's safe."
Caleb stood by the porch of his house as the bride and bridegroom
entered their humble vehicle. Though then November, the day was
exquisitely mild and calm, the sky without a cloud, and even the
leafless trees seemed to smile beneath the cheerful sun. And the young
bride wept no more; she was with him she loved--she was his for ever.
She forgot the rest. The hope--the heart of sixteen--spoke brightly out
through the blushes that mantled over her fair cheeks. The bridegroom's
frank and manly countenance was radiant with joy. As he waved his
hand to Caleb from the window the post-boy cracked his whip, the
servant settled himself on the dickey, the horses started off in a brisk
trot,--the clergyman was left alone.
To be married is certainly an event in life; to marry other people is, for
a priest, a very ordinary occurrence; and yet, from that day, a great
change began to operate in the spirits and the habits of Caleb Price.
Have you ever, my gentle reader, buried yourself for some time quietly
in the lazy ease of a dull country-life? Have you ever become gradually
accustomed to its monotony, and inured to its solitude; and, just at the
time when you have half-forgotten the great world--that mare magnum
that frets and roars in the distance--have you ever received in your calm
retreat some visitor, full of the busy and excited life which you
imagined yourself contented to relinquish? If so, have you not
perceived, that, in proportion as his presence and communication either
revived old memories, or brought before you new pictures of "the
bright tumult" of that existence of which your guest made a part,--you
began to compare him curiously with yourself; you began to feel that
what before was to rest is now to rot; that your years are gliding from
you unenjoyed and wasted; that the contrast between the animal life of
passionate civilisation and the vegetable torpor of motionless seclusion
is one that, if you are still young, it tasks your philosophy to
bear,--feeling all the while that the torpor may be yours to your grave?
And when your guest has left you, when you are again alone, is the

solitude the same as it was before?
Our poor Caleb had for years rooted his thoughts to his village. His
guest had been like the Bird in the Fairy Tale, settling upon the quiet
branches, and singing so loudly and so gladly of the enchanted skies
afar, that, when it flew away, the tree pined, nipped and withering in
the sober sun in which before it had basked contented. The guest was,
indeed, one of those men whose animal spirits exercise upon such as
come within their circle the influence and power usually ascribed only
to intellectual qualities. During the month he had sojourned with Caleb,
he had brought back to the poor parson all the gaiety of the brisk and
noisy novitiate that preceded the solemn vow and the dull retreat;--the
social parties, the merry suppers, the open-handed, open-hearted
fellowship of riotous, delightful, extravagant, thoughtless YOUTH.
And Caleb was not a bookman--not a scholar; he had no resources in
himself, no occupation but his indolent and ill-paid