draught? How's her mookis membrin? And her biliary ducks? an'—she's off like a flash.”
“And no wonder,” said Mrs. Dodd reproachfully.
Thus splashed Sampson among the ducks: one of them did not show her face again till dinner.
Jane Hardie accompanied her brother by invitation. The general amity was diversified and the mirth nowise lessened by constant passages of arms between Messrs. Sampson and Alfred Hardie.
After tea came the first contretemps. Sampson liked a game of cards: he could play, yet talk chronothermalism, as the fair can knit babies' shoes and imbibe the poetasters of the day.
Mrs. Dodd had asked Edward to bring a fresh pack. He was seen by his guardian angel to take them out of his pocket and undo them; presently Sampson, in his rapid way, clutched hold of them; and found a slip of paper curled round the ace of spades, with this written very clear in pencil,
“REMEMBER THY CREATOR IN THE DAYS OF THY YOUTH!”
“What is this?” cried Sampson, and read it out aloud. Jane Hardie coloured, and so betrayed herself. Her “word in season” had strayed. It was the young and comely Edward she wished to save from the diabolical literature, the painted perdition, and not the uninteresting old sinner Sampson, who proceeded to justify her preference by remarking that “Remember not to trump your partner's best card, ladies,” would be more to the point.
Everybody, except this hardened personage, was thoroughly uncomfortable. As for Alfred, his face betrayed a degree of youthful mortification little short of agony. Mrs. Dodd was profoundly disgusted, but fortunately for the Hardies, caught sight of his burning cheeks and compressed lips. “Dr. Sampson,” said she, with cold dignity, “you will, I am sure, oblige me by making no more comments; sincerity is not always discreet; but it is always respectable: it is one of your own titles to esteem. I dare say,” added she with great sweetness, “our resources are not so narrow that we need shock anybody's prejudices, and, as it happens, I was just going to ask Julia to sing: open the piano, love, and try if you can persuade Miss Hardie to join you in a duet.”
At this, Jane and Julia had an earnest conversation at the piano, and their words, uttered in a low voice, were covered by a contemporaneous discussion between Sampson and Mrs. Dodd.
Jane. No, you must not ask me: I have forsworn these vanities. I have not opened my piano this two years.
Julia. Oh, what a pity; music is so beautiful; and surely we can choose our songs, as easily as our words; ah, how much more easily.
Jane. Oh, I don't go so far as to call music wicked: but music in society is such a snare. At least I found it so; my playing was highly praised, and that stirred up vanity: and so did my singing, with which I had even more reason to be satisfied. Snares! snares!
Julia. Goodness me! I don't find them so. Now you mention it, gentlemen do praise one; but, dear me, they praise every lady, even when we have been singing every other note out of tune. The little unmeaning compliments of society, can they catch anything so great as a soul?
Jane. I pray daily not to be led into temptation, and shall I go into it of my own accord?
Julia. Not if you find it a temptation. At that rate I ought to decline.
Jane. That doesn't follow. My conscience is not a law to yours. Besides, your mamma said “sing:” and a parent is not to be disobeyed upon a doubt. If papa were to insist on my going to a ball even, or reading a novel, I think I should obey; and lay the whole case before Him.
Mrs. Dodd (from a distance). Come, my dears, Dr. Sampson is getting so impatient for your song.
Sampson. Hum! for all that, young ladies' singing is a poor substitute for cards, and even for conversation.
Mrs. Dodd. That depends upon the singer, I presume.
Sampson. Mai—dear—madam, they all sing alike; just as they all write alike. I can hardly tell one fashionable tune from another; and nobody can tell one word from another, when they cut out all the consonants. N' listen me. This is what I heard sung by a lady last night.
Eu un Da' ei u aa an oo. By oo eeeeyee aa Vaullee, Vaullee, Vaullee, Vaullee, Vaullee om is igh eeaa An ellin in is ud.
Mrs. Dodd. That sounds like gibberish.
Sampson. It is gibberish, but it's Drydenish in articulating mouths. It is—
He sung Darius great and good, By too severe a fate Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen, Fallen from his high estate, And wiltering in his blood.
Mrs. Dodd. I think you exaggerate. I will answer for Julia that she shall speak as distinctly to music as you do in conversation.
Sampson (all unconscious of the tap). Time will show, madam. At prisent they seem to be in no hurry to spatter us with their word-jelly. Does some spark of pity linger in their marble bos'ms? or do they prefer inaud'ble chit-chat t' inarticulate mewing?
Julia, thus pressed, sang one of those songs that come and go every season. She spoke the words clearly, and with such variety and intelligence, that Sampson recanted, and broke in upon the—“very pretty”—“how sweet”—and “who is it by?” of the others, by shouting, “Very weak trash very cleanly sung. Now give us something worth the wear and tear of your orgins. Immortal vairse widded t' immortal sounds; that is what I understand b' a song.”
Alfred whispered, “No, no, dearest; sing something suitable to you and me.”
“Out of the question. Then go farther away, dear; I shall have more courage.”
He obeyed, and she turned over two or three music-books, and finally sung from memory. She cultivated musical memory, having observed the contempt with which men of sense visit the sorry pretenders to music, who are tuneless and songless among the nightingales, and anywhere else away from their books. How will they manage to sing in heaven? Answer me that.
The song Julia Dodd sang on this happy occasion, to meet the humble but heterogeneous views of Messrs. Sampson and Hardie, was a simple eloquent Irish song called Aileen Aroon. Whose history, by-the-bye, was a curious one. Early in this century it occurred to somebody to hymn a son of George the Third for his double merit in having been born, and going to a ball. People who thus apply the fine arts in modern days are seldom artists; accordingly, this parasite could not invent a melody; so he coolly stole Aileen Aroon, soiled it by inserting sordid and incongruous jerks into the refrain, and called the stolen and adulterated article Robin Adair. An artisan of the same kidney was soon found to write words down to the degraded ditty: and, so strong is Flunkeyism, and so weak is Criticism, in these islands, that the polluted tune actually superseded the clean melody; and this sort of thing—
Who was in uniform at the ball?
Silly Billy,
smothered the immortal lines.
But Mrs. Dodd's severe taste in music rejected those ignoble jerks, and her enthusiastic daughter having the option to hymn immortal Constancy or mortal Fat, decided thus:—
When like the early rose,
Aileen aroon,
