The doctor's soliloquy was cut short by a sound of lamentation, which, as he went on, came to him in louder and louder bursts. He was attracted to the spot whence the sounds proceeded, and had some difficulty in discovering a doleful swain, who was ensconced in a ma.s.s of fern, taller than himself if he had been upright; and but that, by rolling over and over in the turbulence of his grief, he had flattened a large s.p.a.ce down to the edge of the forest brook near which he reclined, he would have remained invisible in his lair. The tears in his eyes, and the pa.s.sionate utterances of his voice, contrasted strangely with a round russetin face, which seemed fortified by beef and ale against all possible furrows of care; but against love, even beef and ale, mighty talismans as they are, are feeble barriers. Cupid's arrows had pierced through the _os triplex_ of treble X, and the stricken deer lay mourning by the stream.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A doleful swain. 071-41]

The doctor approaching kindly inquired, 'What is the matter?' but was answered only by a redoubled burst of sorrow, and an emphatic rejection of all sympathy.

'You can't do me any good.'

'You do not know that,' said the doctor. 'No man knows what good another can do him till he communicates his trouble.'

For some time the doctor could obtain no other answer than the repet.i.tion of 'You can't do me any good.' But at length the patience and kind face of the inquirer had their effect on the sad shepherd, and he brought out with a desperate effort and a more clamorous explosion of grief--

'She won't have me!'

'Who won't have you?'

'Well, if you must know,' said the swain, 'you must. It's one of the young ladies up at the Folly.'

'Young ladies?' said the doctor.

'Servants they call themselves,' said the other; 'but they are more like ladies, and hold their heads high enough, when one of them won't have me. Father's is one of the best farms for miles round, and it's all his own. He's a true old yeoman, father is. And there's n.o.body but him and me. And if I had a nice wife, that would be a good housekeeper for him, and play and sing to him of an evening--for she can do anything, she can--read, write, and keep accounts, and play and sing--I've heard her--and make a plum-pudding--I've seen her--we should be as happy as three crickets--four, perhaps, at the year's end: and she won't have me!'

'You have put the question?' said the doctor.

'Plump,' said the other. 'And she looked at first as if she was going to laugh. She didn't, though. Then she looked serious, and said she was sorry for me. She said she saw I was in earnest She knew I was a good son, and deserved a good wife; but she couldn't have me. Miss, said I, do you like anybody better? No, she said very heartily.'

'That is one comfort,' said the doctor.

'What comfort,' said the other, 'when she won't have me?'

'She may alter her mind,' said the doctor, 'if she does not prefer any one else. Besides, she only says she can't.'

'Can't,' said the other, 'is civil for won't. That's all.'

'Does she say why she can't?' said the doctor.

'Yes,' said the other. 'She says she and her sisters won't part with each other and their young master.'

'Now,' said the doctor, 'you have not told me which of the seven sisters is the one in question.'

'It's the third,' said the other. 'What they call the second cook.

There's a housekeeper and two cooks, and two housemaids and two waiting maids. But they only manage for the young master. There are others that wait on them.

'And what is her name?' said the doctor.

'Dorothy,' said the other; 'her name is Dorothy. Their names follow, like ABC, only that A comes last. Betsey, Catherine, Dorothy, Eleanor, f.a.n.n.y, Grace, Anna. But they told me it was not the alphabet they were christened from; it was the key of A minor, if you know what that means.'

'I think I do,' said the doctor, laughing. 'They were christened from the Greek diatonic scale, and make up two conjunct tetrachords, if you know what that means.'

'I can't say I do,' said the other, looking bewildered.

'And so,' said the doctor, 'the young gentleman, whose name is Algernon, is the Proslambanomenos, or key-note, and makes up the octave. His parents must have designed it as a foretelling that he and his seven foster-sisters were to live in harmony all their lives. But how did you become acquainted?'

'Why,' said the other, 'I take a great many things to the house from our farm, and it's generally she that takes them in.'

'I know the house well,' said the doctor, 'and the master, and the maids. Perhaps he may marry, and they may follow the example. Live in hope. Tell me your name.'

'Hedgerow,' said the other; 'Harry Hedgerow. And if you know her, ain't she a beauty?'

'Why, yes,' said the doctor; 'they are all good-looking.'

'And she won't have me,' cried the other, but with a more subdued expression. The doctor had consoled him, and given him a ray of hope.

And they went on their several ways.

The doctor resumed his soliloquy.

'Here is the semblance of something towards a solution of the difficulty. If one of the damsels should marry, it would break the combination. One will not by herself. But what if seven apple-faced Hedgerows should propose simultaneously, seven notes in the key of A minor, an octave below? Stranger things have happened. I have read of six brothers who had the civility to break their necks in succession, that the seventh, who was the hero of the story, might inherit an estate. But, again and again, why should I trouble myself with matchmaking? I had better leave things to take their own course.'

Still in his interior _speculum_ the doctor could not help seeing a dim reflection of himself p.r.o.nouncing the nuptial benediction on his two young friends.

CHAPTER VII

THE VICAR AND HIS WIFE--FAMILIES OF LOVE--THE NEWSPAPER

Indulge Genio: carpamus dulcia: nostrum est Quod vivis: cinis, et manes, et fabula fies.

Vive memor lethi: fugit hora: hoc quod loquor, inde est.

Persius.

Indulge thy Genius, while the hour's thine own: Even while we speak, some part of it has flown.

s.n.a.t.c.h the swift-pa.s.sing good: 'twill end ere long In dust and shadow, and an old wife's song.

'Agapetus and Agapete,' said the Reverend Doctor Opimian, the next morning at breakfast, 'in the best sense of the words: that, I am satisfied, is the relation between this young gentleman and his handmaids.'

__Mrs. Opimian.__ Perhaps, doctor, you will have the goodness to make your view of this relation a little more intelligible to me.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ a.s.suredly, my dear. The word signifies 'beloved'

in its purest sense. And in this sense it was used by Saint Paul in reference to some of his female co-religionists and fellow-labourers in the vineyard, in whose houses he occasionally dwelt. And in this sense it was applied to virgins and holy men, who dwelt under the same roof in spiritual love.

_Mrs. Opimian._ Very likely, indeed. You are a holy man, doctor, but I think, if you were a bachelor, and I were a maid, I should not trust myself to be your aga--aga--

[Ill.u.s.tration: Should not trust myself to be your aga--aga. 076-44]

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Agapete. But I never pretended to this sort of spiritualism. I followed the advice of Saint Paul, who says it is better to marry.

_Mrs. Opimian._ You need not finish the quotation.