Tales and Novels, vol 7 | Page 7

over
his papers, in order to show Mr. Percy a complimentary letter from
some crowned head, M. de Tourville discovered that an important
packet of papers belonging to his despatches was missing. He had in
the moment of danger and terror stuffed all his despatches into his
great-coat pocket; in getting out of the boat he had given his coat to
Comtois to carry, and, strange to tell, this chargé d'affaires had taken it
upon trust, from the assertion of his valet, that all his papers were safe.
He once, indeed, had looked them over, but so carelessly that he never
had missed the packet. His dismay was great when he discovered his
loss. He repeated at least a thousand times that he was an undone man,
unless the packet could be found.--Search was made for it, in the boat,
on the shore, in every probable and improbable place--but all in vain;
and in the midst of the search a messenger came to announce that the
wind was fair, that the ship would sail in one hour, and that the captain
could wait for no man. M. de Tourville was obliged to take his
departure without this precious packet.
Mrs. Percy was the only person in the family who had the humanity to
pity him. He was too little of a soldier for Godfrey's taste, too much of
a courtier for Mr. Percy, too frivolous for Caroline, and too little
romantic for Rosamond.
"So," said Rosamond, "here was a fine beginning of a romance with a
shipwreck, that ends only in five square merchants, who do not lose
even a guilder of their property, and a diplomatist, with whom we are
sure of nothing but that he has lost a bundle of papers for which nobody
cares!"
In a few days the remembrance of the whole adventure began to fade

from her fancy. M. de Tourville, and his snuff-box, and his essences,
and his flattery, and his diplomacy, and his lost packet, and all the
circumstances of the shipwreck, would have appeared as a dream, if
they had not been maintained in the rank of realities by the daily sight
of the wreck, and by the actual presence of the Dutch sailors, who were
repairing the vessel.
CHAPTER II.
A few days after the departure of M. de Tourville, Commissioner
Falconer, a friend, or at least a relation of Mr. Percy's, came to pay him
a visit. As the commissioner looked out of the window and observed
the Dutch carpenter, who was passing by with tools under his arm, he
began to talk of the late shipwreck. Mr. Falconer said he had heard
much of the successful exertions and hospitality of the Percy family on
that occasion--regretted that he had himself been called to town just at
that time--asked many questions about the passengers on board the
vessel, and when M. de Tourville was described to him, deplored that
Mr. Percy had never thought of trying to detain this foreigner a few
days longer.
For, argued the commissioner, though M. de Tourville might not be an
accredited chargé d'affaires, yet, since he was a person in some degree
in an official capacity, and intrusted with secret negotiations,
government might have wished to know something about him. "And at
all events," added the commissioner, with a shrewd smile, "it would
have been a fine way of paying our court to a certain great man."
"So, commissioner, you still put your trust in great men?" said Mr.
Percy.
"Not in all great men, but in some," replied the commissioner; "for
instance, in your old friend, Lord Oldborough, who, I'm happy to
inform you, is just come into our neighbourhood to Clermont-park, of
which he has at last completed the purchase, and has sent down his
plate and pictures.--Who knows but he may make Clermont-park his
summer residence, instead of his place in Essex? and if he should,

there's no saying of what advantage it might be, for I have it from the
very best authority, that his lordship's influence in a certain quarter is
greater than ever. Of course, Mr. Percy, you will wait upon Lord
Oldborough, when he comes to this part of the country?"
"No, I believe not," said Mr. Percy: "I have no connexion with him
now."
"But you were so intimate with him abroad," expostulated Mr.
Falconer.
"It is five-and-twenty years since I knew him abroad," said Mr. Percy;
"and from all I have heard, he is an altered man. When I was intimate
with Lord Oldborough, he was a generous, open-hearted youth: he has
since become a politician, and I fear he has sold himself for a riband to
the demon of ambition."
"No matter to whom he has sold himself, or for what," replied the
commissioner; "that is