CHAPTER LXI. In which the Prince marches up the Hill and down again
We understand the respectful indignation of all loyal Britons when theycome to read of Mr. George Warrington's conduct towards a gallantand gracious Prince, the beloved son of the best of monarchs, and theCaptain-General of the British army. What an inestimable favour has notthe young man slighted! What a chance of promotion had he not thrownaway! Will Esmond, whose language was always rich in blasphemies,employed his very strongest curses in speaking of his cousin'sbehaviour, and expressed his delight that the confounded young Mohockwas cutting his own throat. Cousin Castlewood said that a savagegentleman had a right to scalp himself if he liked; or perhaps, he addedcharitably, our cousin Mr. Warrington heard enough of the war-whoopin Braddock's affair, and has no more stomach for fighting. Mr. Willrejoiced that the younger brother had gone to the deuce, and he rejoicedto think that the elder was following him. The first time he met thefellow, Will said, he should take care to let Mr. George know what hethought of him.
"If you intend to insult George, at least you had best take care thathis brother Harry is out of hearing!" cried Lady Maria--on which we mayfancy more curses uttered by Mr. Will, with regard to his twin kinsfolk.
"Ta, ta, ta!" says my lord. "No more of this squabbling! We can't be allwarriors in the family!"
"I never heard your lordship laid claim to be one!" says Maria.
"Never, my dear; quite the contrary! Will is our champion, and one isquite enough in the house. So I dare say with the two Mohocks;--Georgeis the student, and Harry is the fighting man. When you intendedto quarrel, Will, what a pity it was you had not George, instead oft'other, to your hand!"
"Your lordship's hand is famous--at piquet," says Will's mother.
"It is a pretty one," says my lord, surveying his fingers, with asimper. "My Lord Hervey's glove and mine were of a size. Yes, my hand,as you say, is more fitted for cards than for war. Yours, my LadyCastlewood, is pretty dexterous, too. How I bless the day when youbestowed it on my lamented father!" In this play of sarcasm, as in someother games of skill, his lordship was not sorry to engage, having acool head, and being able to beat his family all round.
Madame de Bernstein, when she heard of Mr. Warrington's bevue, wasexceedingly angry, stormed, and scolded her immediate household; andwould have scolded George but she was growing old, and had not thecourage of her early days. Moreover, she was a little afraid of hernephew, and respectful in her behaviour to him. "You will never makeyour fortune at court, nephew!" she groaned, when, soon after hisdiscomfiture, the young gentleman went to wait upon her.
"It was never my wish, madam," said Mr. George, in a very statelymanner.
"Your wish was to help Harry? You might hereafter have been of serviceto your brother, had you accepted the Duke's offer. Princes do notlove to have their favours refused, and I don't wonder that his RoyalHighness was offended."
"General Lambert said the same thing," George confessed, turning ratherred; "and I see now that I was wrong. But you must please remember thatI had never seen a court before, and I suppose I am scarce likely toshine in one."
"I think possibly not, my good nephew," says the aunt, taking snuff.
"And what then?" asked George. "I never had ambition for that kindof glory, and can make myself quite easy without it. When his RoyalHighness spoke to me--most kindly, as I own--my thought was, I shallmake a very bad soldier, and my brother would be a very good one. He hasa hundred good qualities for the profession, in which I am deficient;and would have served a Commanding Officer far better than I ever could.Say the Duke is in battle, and his horse is shot, as my poor chief'swas at home, would he not be better for a beast that had courage andstrength to bear him anywhere, than with one that could not carry hisweight?"
"Au fait. His Royal Highness's charger must be a strong one, my dear!"says the old lady.
"Expende Hannibalem," mutters George, with a shrug. "Our Hannibal weighsno trifle."
"I don't quite follow you, sir, and your Hannibal," the Baronessremarks.
"When Mr. Wolfe and Mr. Lambert remonstrated with me as you have done,madam," George rejoins, with a laugh, "I made this same defence which Iam making to you. I said I offered to the Prince the best soldier in thefamily, and the two gentlemen allowed that my blunder at least hadsome excuse. Who knows but that they may set me right with his RoyalHighness? The taste I have had of battles has shown me how little mygenius inclines that way. We saw the Scotch play which everybody istalking about t'other night. And when the hero, young Norval, said howhe longed to follow to the field some warlike lord, I thought to myself,'how like my Harry is to him, except that he doth not brag.' Harry ispining now for a red coat, and if we don't mind, will take the shilling.He has the map of Germany for ever under his eyes, and follows the Kingof Prussia everywhere. He is not afraid of men or gods. As for me, Ilove my books and quiet best, and to read about battles in Homer orLucan."
"Then what made a soldier of you at all, my dear? And why did you notsend Harry with Mr. Braddock, instead of going yourself?" asked Madamede Bernstein.
"My mother loved her younger son the best," said George, darkly."Besides, with the enemy invading our country, it was my duty, as thehead of our family, to go on the campaign. Had I been a Scotchman twelveyears ago, I should have been a----"
"Hush, sir! or I shall be more angry than ever!" said the old lady, witha perfectly pleased face.
George's explanation might thus appease Madame de Bernstein, an oldwoman whose principles we fear were but loose: but to the loyal heart ofSir Miles Warrington and his lady, the young man's conduct gave a severeblow indeed! "I should have thought," her ladyship said, "from my sisterEsmond Warrington's letter, that my brother's widow was a woman of goodsense and judgment, and that she had educated her sons in a becomingmanner. But what, Sir Miles, what, my dear Thomas Claypool, can we thinkof an education which has resulted so lamentably for both these youngmen?"
"The elder seems to know a power of Latin, though, and speaks theFrench and the German too. I heard him with the Hanover Envoy, at theBaroness's rout," says Mr. Claypool. "The French he jabbered quite easy:and when he was at a loss for the High Dutch, he and the Envoy began inLatin, and talked away till all the room stared."
"It is not language, but principles, Thomas Claypool!" exclaims thevirtuous matron. "What must Mr. Warrington's principles be, when hecould reject an offer made him by his Prince? Can he speak the HighDutch? So much the more ought he to have accepted his Royal Highness'scondescension, and made himself useful in the campaign! Look at our son,look at Miles!"
"Hold up thy head, Miley, my boy!" says papa.
"I trust, Sir Miles, that, as a member of the House of Commons, as anEnglish gentleman, you will attend his Royal Highness's levee to-morrow,and say, if such an offer had been made to us for that child, we wouldhave taken it, though our boy is but ten years of age."
"Faith, Miley, thou wouldst make a good little drummer or fifer!" sayspapa. "Shouldst like to be a little soldier, Miley?"
"Anything, sir, anything! a Warrington ought to be ready at any momentto have himself cut in pieces for his sovereign!" cries the matron,pointing to the boy; who, as soon as he comprehended his mother'sproposal, protested against it by a loud roar, in the midst of which hewas removed by Screwby. In obedience to the conjugal orders, Sir Mileswent to his Royal Highness's levee the next day, and made a protest ofhis love and duty, which the Prince deigned to accept, saying:
"Nobody ever supposed that Sir Miles Warrington would ever refuse anyplace offered to him."
A compliment gracious indeed, and repeated everywhere by LadyWarrington, as showing how implicitly the august family on the thronecould rely on the loyalty of the Warringtons.
Accordingly, when this worthy couple saw George, they received him witha ghastly commiseration, such as our dear relatives or friends willsometimes extend to us when we have done something fatal or clumsy inlife; when we have come badly out of our lawsuit; when we enter the roo
mjust as the company has been abusing us; when our banker has broke; orwe for our sad part have had to figure in the commercial columns of theLondon Gazette;--when, in a word, we are guilty of some notorious fault,or blunder, or misfortune. Who does not know that face of pity? Whosedear relations have not so deplored him, not dead, but living? Notyours? Then, sir, if you have never been in scrapes; if you have neversowed a handful of wild oats or two; if you have always been fortunate,and good, and careful, and butter has never melted in your mouth, andan imprudent word has never come out of it; if you have never sinned andrepented, and been a fool and been sorry--then, sir, you are a wiseacrewho won't waste your time over an idle novel, and it is not de te thatthe fable is narrated at all.
Not that it was just on Sir Miles's part to turn upon George, and beangry with his nephew for refusing the offer of promotion made by hisRoyal Highness, for Sir Miles himself had agreed in George's view ofpursuing quite other than a military career, and it was in respect tothis plan of her son's that Madam Esmond had written from Virginiato Sir Miles Warrington. George had announced to her his intention ofentering at the Temple, and qualifying himself for the magisterialand civil duties which, in the course of nature, he would be called tofulfil; nor could any one applaud his resolution more cordially than hisuncle Sir Miles, who introduced George to a lawyer of reputation, underwhose guidance we may fancy the young gentleman reading leisurely.Madam Esmond from home signified her approval of her son's course, fullyagreeing with Sir Miles (to whom and his lady she begged to send hergrateful remembrances) that the British Constitution was the envy ofthe world, and the proper object of every English gentleman's admiringstudy. The chief point to which George's mother objected was the notionthat Mr. Warrington should have to sit down in the Temple dinner-ball,and cut at a shoulder of mutton, and drink small-beer out of tinpannikins, by the side of rough students who wore gowns like theparish-clerk. George's loyal younger brother shared too this repugnance.Anything was good enough for him, Harry said; he was a younger son, andprepared to rough it; but George, in a gown, and dining in a mess withthree nobody's sons off dirty pewter platters! Harry never could relishthis condescension on his brother's part, or fancy George in his properplace at any except the high table; and was sorry that a plan MadamEsmond hinted at in her letters was not feasible--viz., that anapplication should be made to the Master of the Temple, who should beinformed that Mr. George Warrington was a gentleman of most noble birth,and of great property in America, and ought only to sit with the verybest company in the Hall. Rather to Harry's discomfiture, when hecommunicated his own and his mother's ideas to the gentlemen's newcoffee-house friend, Mr. Spencer, Mr. Spencer received the proposal withroars of laughter; and I cannot learn, from the Warrington papers, thatany application was made to the Master of the Temple on this subject.Besides his literary and historical pursuits, which were those hemost especially loved, Mr. Warrington studied the laws of his country,attended the courts at Westminster, where he heard a Henley, a Pratt,a Murray, and those other great famous schools of eloquence andpatriotism, the two houses of parliament.
Gradually Mr. Warrington made acquaintance with some of the members ofthe House and the Bar; who, when they came to know him, spoke of himas a young gentleman of good parts and good breeding, and in terms sogenerally complimentary, that his good uncle's heart relented towardshim, and Dora and Flora began once more to smile upon him. Thisreconciliation dated from the time when his Royal Highness the Duke,after having been defeated by the French, in the affair of Hastenbeck,concluded the famous capitulation with the French, which his MajestyGeorge II. refused to ratify. His Royal Highness, as 'tis well known,flung up his commissions after this disgrace, laid down his commander'sbaton--which, it must be confessed, he had not wielded with much luck ordexterity--and never again appeared at the head of armies or in publiclife. The stout warrior would not allow a word of complaint against hisfather and sovereign to escape his lips; but, as he retired with hiswounded honour, and as he would have no interest or authority more, norany places to give, it may be supposed that Sir Miles Warrington's angeragainst his nephew diminished as his respect for his Royal Highnessdiminished.
As our two gentlemen were walking in St. James's Park, one day, withtheir friend Mr. Lambert, they met his Royal Highness in plain clothesand without a star, and made profound bows to the Prince, who waspleased to stop and speak to them.
He asked Mr. Lambert how he liked my Lord Ligonier, his new chief atthe Horse Guards, and the new duties there in which he was engaged? And,recognising the young men, with that fidelity of memory for which hisRoyal race hath ever been remarkable, he said to Mr. Warrington:
"You did well, sir, not to come with me when I asked you in the spring."
"I was sorry, then, sir," Mr. Warrington said, making a very lowreverence, "but I am more sorry now."
On which the Prince said, "Thank you, sir," and, touching his hat,walked away. And the circumstances of this interview, and the discoursewhich passed at it, being related to Mrs. Esmond Warrington in a letterfrom her younger son, created so deep an impression in that lady's mind,that she narrated the anecdote many hundreds of times until all herfriends and acquaintances knew and, perhaps, were tired of it.
Our gentlemen went through the Park, and so towards the Strand, wherethey had business. And Mr. Lambert, pointing to the lion on the top ofthe Earl of Northumberland's house at Charing Cross, says:
"Harry Warrington! your brother is like yonder lion."
"Because he is as brave as one," says Harry.
"Because I respect virgins!" says George, laughing.
"Because you are a stupid lion. Because you turn your back on the East,and absolutely salute the setting sun. Why, child, what earthly good canyou get by being civil to a man in hopeless dudgeon and disgrace? Youruncle will be more angry with you than ever--and so am I, sir." But Mr.Lambert was always laughing in his waggish way, and, indeed, he did notlook the least angry.