CHAP. V.

My uncle paused at the gate to gain a little breath, as the road lay on the acclivity. “And here,” said he, “I shall introduce you to a most amiable woman, the pride of the village, the patroness of suffering virtue; the real and sincere friend, who deserts not in the hour of indigence, nor fallaciously courts you in the day of affluence. Universally beloved by every class of society, Lady Lustre rises the pattern of excellence to her sex in general.”

My uncle rang at the gate, but was informed by the butler her ladyship was just gone out in the carriage to take an airing; we therefore merely left our card, and proceeded onwards, till in crossing through a small meadow, a dashing young man moved his hat to my uncle, who returned the salute; but neither spoke.

“Who is that gentleman, Sir?” asked I.

“A young tradesman in the town, the unexpected inheritor of a handsome fortune, left him by a rich old woman in the moment of caprice, who, if she had studied her duty to her real heir a little more , and her brandy bottle a little less , would not have left a stain on her memory, from the false promises she evinced, and the disappointments she entailed by her perfidious fallacy; for she was nothing less than a composition of deceit and avarice; the tear of the poor never bedewed her grave, and if ever one dropped from the eye of this said young Windfall, whom we have just passed, it must have been the tear of joy at his unexpected acquisition ; in consequence of which, he soon after brushed up his old ramshackle house, and held up his head with as much ostentation as any petty King; came up to London, and married a Miss Sterling.”

“He’s a very fortunate young man,” said I.

“He is, thanks to God and good luck,” replied my uncle; “but I knew him the height of my chair, when he used to be at the old woman’s house, fetching her snuff-box, carrying her work-basket, handing the toast plate, and, in short, performing all the various duties that children are required in the capacity of a little dependent visitor, for which he was rewarded with a penny apple pye every market day out of the old woman’s pocket, little dreaming at that time of becoming the Broomfield sweeper of her old bureau, from which sanctorum a mouldy half guinea had been occasionally drawn with much pomp once a year as a present to her only heir and namesake , under the assurance that it was the earnest of future favours, which at her demise was to constitute “something very handsome ,” which something amounted to a few old furrows, stacks, and barns, which not being exactly convenient to take with her, and well knowing him the hereditary heir , she did him the honour to tie up for life in the immense sum of fifty pounds per annum, subject at the decease of him and his heirs, to revert to the said Mr. Windfall, whom she nominated trustee of this splendid bequest, much to the surprize of the whole village, who had heard her subtle promises, and repeatedly congratulated the young heir apparent, who, as the last of the family, and son of her favourite (but equally misled) nephew, had an undoubted claim both on her conscience , honour, and gratitude, had she possessed either. Such was the woman, for I knew her well; and such the characters we are doomed to meet with in the world! Aye, Victor, my boy, those lessons of experience are very painful tasks to learn, but they bear a great moral.”

“It is indeed, Sir,” replied I, “a great pity that our follies should stamp a blot on the tablet of that memory which should most revere our virtues; but so it often happens, through some idle caprice of the moment, or insinuating artifice of subordinate foes .”

My uncle grated his cane along the sandy road in deep rumination for at least twenty yards; then suddenly pausing, and striking it vehemently on the ground, exclaimed, “I have this moment fixed upon my heir, but I shall leave him an Irish legacy.”

“I don’t exactly comprehend your meaning, Sir,” replied I.

“Why, Sir,” resumed my uncle, “I mean to give it him in my life time, that I may have the pleasure of seeing how he prospers; if he makes ducks and drakes of it, I shall know better how to dispose of the remaining crumbs; if he proves what my hopes and wishes should have, I shall die in peace, with the glorious satisfaction of knowing I have promoted his happiness, and rewarded his virtues by the comforts of prosperity, improved by his own diligence and prudence.”

I don’t know how it was, but I heaved an involuntary sigh, an interested one it certainly was, for my uncle had drawn such a picture, that I wished it my own portrait; but alas! I well knew I had little chance of success; and yet his momentary ejaculation puzzled me. A few minutes more brought us to the post office, where my uncle procured a shillings-worth of halfpence; “because,” said he, “whenever I go through the village, I pay toll to every child I see with a clean face, by which means, (as my rambles are extremely uncertain in their period,) there’s scarce ever a smutty infantine face in the parish, as you will presently see.”

The post-master smiled, and observed, that the appearance of my uncle always spread such a contagion of emulative cleanliness through the village, that in two minutes after the first little pair of eyes espied him, every pump was in requisition; and so it proved; for we soon after met above twenty just returned from school, at all of whom my uncle scowled his eye-brows with a half-suppressed smile, as he dropped the expected halfpenny to each, one boy excepted, whom my uncle pinched by the ear, exclaiming, “you’re a slovenly rogue; you’ve not got a copper face.”

The boy stared, and mechanically stroking his chin, as if to feel its composition; “I’m sure I’se got a feace,” said he.

“Yes,” returned my uncle, “you have got a rare dirty face ,” then shaking his cane at him, “go along home, you nasty fellow; there’s no halfpenny for you.”

The disappointed boy sneaked off with slow and sullen pace, hoping, as he leered over his shoulder, to be called back; but he was mistaken. My uncle never broke his word, by which means his advice or punishments were both effective.