Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn | Page 5

a most beautiful old woman.
Dressed I said in grey, with a white handkerchief pinned over her grey
hair, and a light Indian shawl hanging from her shoulders. As upright as
a dart: she came towards us through the burning heat, as calmly and
majestically as if the temperature had been delightfully moderate. A
hoary old magpie accompanied her, evidently of great age, and from
time to time barked like an old bulldog, in a wheezy whisper.
"My dear," said the major; "Hamlyn is going to read aloud some
manuscript to us."
"That will be very delightful, this hot weather," said Mrs. Buckley.
"May I ask the subject, old friend?"
"I would rather you did not, my dear madam; you will soon discover, in
spite of a change of names, and perhaps somewhat of localities."
"Well, go on," said the major; and so on I went with the next chapter,
which is the first of the story.
The reader will probably ask:
"Now, who on earth is Major Buckley? and who is Captain Brentwood?
and last not least, who the Dickens are you?" If you will have patience,
my dear sir, you will find it all out in a very short time--Read on.

Chapter II

THE COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE OF JOHN THORNTON,
CLERK, AND THE BIRTH OF SOME ONE WHO TAKES RATHER
A CONSPICUOUS

PART IN OUR STORY.
Sometime between the years 1780 and 1790, young John Thornton,
then a Servitor at Christ Church, fell in love with pretty Jane Hickman,
whose father was a well-to-do farmer, living not far down the river
from Oxford; and shortly before he took his degree, he called formally
upon old Hickman, and asked his daughter's hand. Hickman was
secretly well pleased that his daughter should marry a scholar and a
gentleman like John Thornton, and a man too who could knock over his
bird, or kill his trout in the lasher with any one. So after some decent

hesitation he told him, that as soon as he got a living, good enough to
support Jane as she had been accustomed to live, he might take her
home with a father's blessing, and a hundred pounds to buy furniture.
And you may take my word for it, that there was not much difficulty
with the young lady, for in fact the thing had long ago been arranged
between them, and she was anxiously waiting in the passage to hear her
father's decision, all the time that John was closeted with him.
John came forth from the room well pleased and happy. And that
evening when they two were walking together in the twilight by the
quiet river, gathering cowslips and fritillaries, he told her of his good
prospects, and how a young lord, who made much of him, and treated
him as a friend and an equal, though he was but a Servitor--and was
used to sit in his room talking with him long after the quadrangle was
quiet, and the fast men had reeled off to their drunken slumbers--had
only three days before promised him a living of 300L. a-year, as soon
as he should take his priest's orders. And when they parted that night, at
the old stile in the meadow, and he saw her go gliding home like a
white phantom under the dark elms, he thought joyfully, that in two
short years they would be happily settled, never more to part in this
world, in his peaceful vicarage in Dorsetshire.
Two short years, he thought. Alas! and alas! Before two years were
gone, poor Lord Sandston was lying one foggy November morning on
Hampstead Heath, with a bullet through his heart. Shot down at the
commencement of a noble and useful career by a brainless gambler--a
man who did all things ill, save billiards and pistol-shooting; his beauty
and his strength hurried to corruption, and his wealth to the senseless
DEBAUCHEE who hounded on his murderer to insult him. But I have
heard old Thornton tell, with proud tears, how my lord, though
outraged and insulted, with no course open to him but to give the
villain the power of taking his life, still fired in the air, and went down
to the vault of his forefathers without the guilt of blood upon his soul.
So died Lord Sandston, and with him all John's hopes of advancement.
A curate now on 50L. a-year; what hope had he of marrying? And now
the tearful couple, walking once more by the river in desolate autumn,

among the flying yellow leaves, swore constancy, and agreed to wait
till better times should come.
So they waited. John in his parish among his poor people and his
school-children, busy always during the day, and sometimes perhaps
happy. But in the long winter evenings, when the