The Battle of Life. A Love Story

Mrs. Snitchey having delivered her congratulations, took her husband aside.

“One moment, Mr. Snitchey,” said that lady. “It is not in my nature to rake up the ashes of the departed.”

“No my dear,” returned her husband.

“Mr. Craggs is – ”

“Yes, my dear, he is deceased,” said Mr. Snitchey.

“But I ask you if you recollect,” pursued his wife, “that evening of the ball. I only ask you that. If you do; and if your memory has not entirely failed you, Mr. Snitchey; and if you are not absolutely in your dotage; I ask you to connect this time with that – to remember how I begged and prayed you, on my knees – ”

“Upon your knees, my dear?” said Mr. Snitchey.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Snitchey, confidently, “and you know it – to beware of that man – to observe his eye – and now to tell me whether I was right, and whether at that moment he knew secrets which he didn’t choose to tell.”

“Mrs. Snitchey,” returned her husband, in her ear, “Madam. Did you ever observe anything in my eye?”

“No,” said Mrs. Snitchey, sharply. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“Because, Ma’am, that night,” he continued, twitching her by the sleeve, “it happens that we both knew secrets which we didn’t choose to tell, and both knew just the same, professionally. And so the less you say about such things the better, Mrs. Snitchey; and take this as a warning to have wiser and more charitable eyes another time. Miss Marion, I brought a friend of yours along with me. Here! Mistress.”

Poor Clemency, with her apron to her eyes, came slowly in, escorted by her husband; the latter doleful with the presentiment, that if she abandoned herself to grief, the Nutmeg Grater was done for.

“Now, Mistress,” said the lawyer, checking Marion as she ran towards her, and interposing himself between them, “what’s the matter with you?”

“The matter!” cried poor Clemency.

When, looking up in wonder, and in indignant remonstrance, and in the added emotion of a great roar from Mr. Britain, and seeing that sweet face so well-remembered close before her, she stared, sobbed, laughed, cried, screamed, embraced her, held her fast, released her, fell on Mr. Snitchey and embraced him (much to Mrs. Snitchey’s indignation), fell on the Doctor and embraced him, fell on Mr. Britain and embraced him, and concluded by embracing herself, throwing her apron over her head, and going into hysterics behind it.

A stranger had come into the orchard, after Mr. Snitchey, and had remained apart, near the gate, without being observed by any of the group; for they had little spare attention to bestow, and that had been monopolised by the ecstasies of Clemency. He did not appear to wish to be observed, but stood alone, with downcast eyes; and there was an air of dejection about him (though he was a gentleman of a gallant appearance) which the general happiness rendered more remarkable.

None but the quick eyes of Aunt Martha, however, remarked him at all; but almost as soon as she espied him, she was in conversation with him. Presently, going to where Marion stood with Grace and her little namesake, she whispered something in Marion’s ear, at which she started, and appeared surprised; but soon recovering from her confusion, she timidly approached the stranger, in Aunt Martha’s company, and engaged in conversation with him too.

“Mr. Britain,” said the lawyer, putting his hand in his pocket, and bringing out a legal-looking document, while this was going on, “I congratulate you. You are now the whole and sole proprietor of that freehold tenement, at present occupied and held by yourself as a licensed tavern, or house of public entertainment, and commonly called or known by the sign of the Nutmeg Grater. Your wife lost one house, through my client Mr. Michael Warden; and now gains another. I shall have the pleasure of canvassing you for the county, one of these fine mornings.”

“Would it make any difference in the vote if the sign was altered, Sir?” asked Britain.

“Not in the least,” replied the lawyer.

“Then,” said Mr. Britain, handing him back the conveyance, “just clap in the words, ‘and Thimble,’ will you be so good; and I’ll have the two mottoes painted up in the parlour, instead of my wife’s portrait.”

“And let me,” said a voice behind them; it was the stranger’s – Michael Warden’s; “let me claim the benefit of those inscriptions. Mr. Heathfield and Dr. Jeddler, I might have deeply wronged you both. That I did not, is no virtue of my own. I will not say that I am six years wiser than I was, or better. But I have known, at any rate, that term of selfreproach. I can urge no reason why you should deal gently with me. I abused the hospitality of this house; and learnt my own demerits, with a shame I never have forgotten, yet with some profit too I would fain hope, from one,” he glanced at Marion, “to whom I made my humble supplication for forgiveness, when I knew her merit and my deep unworthiness. In a few days I shall quit this place for ever. I entreat your pardon. Do as you would be done by! Forget, and forgive!”

Time – from whom I had the latter portion of this story, and with whom I have the pleasure of a personal acquaintance of some five and thirty years’ duration – informed me, leaning easily upon his scythe, that Michael Warden never went away again, and never sold his house, but opened it afresh, maintained a golden mean of hospitality, and had a wife, the pride and honor of that country-side, whose name was Marion. But as I have observed that Time confuses facts occasionally, I hardly know what weight to give to his authority.

THE END