Tales and Novels, vol 7 | Page 4

offered
immediately to accompany them to the coast.
Mr. Percy had taken the precaution to set guards to watch all night,
from the time he left the vessel, that no depredations might be
committed. They found that some of the cargo had been damaged by
the sea-water, but excepting this loss there was no other of any
consequence; the best part of the goods was perfectly safe. As it was
found that it would take some time to repair the wreck, the Prussian and
Hamburgh passengers determined to go on board a vessel which was to
sail from a neighbouring port with the first fair wind. They came,
previously to their departure, to thank the Percy family, and to assure

them that their hospitality would never he forgotten.--Mr. Percy
pressed them to stay at Percy-hall till the vessel should sail, and till the
captain should send notice of the first change of wind.--This offer,
however, was declined, and the Dutch merchants, with due
acknowledgments, said, by their speaking partner, that "they considered
it safest and best to go with the goods, and so wished Mr. Percy a good
morning, and that he might prosper in all his dealings; and, sir,"
concluded he, "in any of the changes of fortune, which happen to men
by land as well as by sea, please to remember the names of
Grinderweld, Groensvelt, and Slidderchild of Amsterdam, or our
correspondents, Panton and Co., London."
So having said, they walked away, keeping an eye upon the goods.
When Mr. Percy returned home it was near dinner-time, yet M. de
Tourville had not made his appearance. He was all this while indulging
in a comfortable sleep. He had no goods on board the wreck except his
clothes, and as these were in certain trunks and portmanteaus in which
Comtois, his valet, had a joint concern, M. de Tourville securely trusted
that they would be obtained without his taking any trouble.
Comtois and the trunks again appeared, and a few minutes before
dinner M. de Tourville made his entrance into the drawing-room, no
longer in the plight of a shipwrecked mariner, but in gallant trim,
wafting gales of momentary bliss as he went round the room paying his
compliments to the ladies, bowing, smiling, apologizing,--the very pink
of courtesy!--The gentlemen of the family, who had seen him the
preceding night in his frightened, angry, drenched, and miserable state,
could scarcely believe him to be the same person.
A Frenchman, it will be allowed, can contrive to say more, and to tell
more of his private history in a given time, than could be accomplished
by a person of any other nation. In the few minutes before dinner he
found means to inform the company, that he was private secretary and
favourite of the minister of a certain German court. To account for his
having taken his passage in a Dutch merchant vessel, and for his
appearing without a suitable suite, he whispered that he had been
instructed to preserve a strict incognito, from which, indeed, nothing

but the horrors of the preceding night could have drawn him.
Dinner was served, and at dinner M. de Tourville was seen, according
to the polished forms of society, humbling himself in all the hypocrisy
of politeness; with ascetic good-breeding, preferring every creature's
ease and convenience to his own, practising a continual system of
self-denial, such as almost implied a total annihilation of self-interest
and self-love. All this was strikingly contrasted with the selfishness
which he had recently betrayed, when he was in personal danger. Yet
the influence of polite manners prevailed so far as to make his former
conduct be forgotten by most of the family.
After dinner, when the ladies retired, in the female privy council held to
discuss the merits of the absent gentlemen, Rosamond spoke first, and
during the course of five minutes pronounced as many contradictory
opinions of M. de Tourville, as could well be enunciated in the same
space of time.--At last she paused, and her mother smiled.
"I understand your smile, mother," said Rosamond; "but the reason I
appear a little to contradict myself sometimes in my judgment of
character is, because I speak my thoughts just as they rise in my mind,
while persons who have a character for judgment to support always
keep the changes of their opinion snug to themselves, never showing
the items of the account on either side, and let you see nothing but their
balance.--This is very grand, and, if their balance be right, very
glorious.--But ignominious as my mode of proceeding may seem,
exposing me to the rebukes, derision, uplifted hands and eyes of my
auditors, yet exactly because I am checked at every little mistake I
make in my accounts, the chance is in my favour that my totals