Punch: Punch (22.1852)

210

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

WAR SONG FOR THE WILBERFORCE SOCIETY.

Och! then, boys, here's persecution; sure them blaggiard foes of Truth
Would be after prying into the tuition at Maynooth,
Bothering the holy doctors taching at that sacred college
Astronomy, veracity, and every kind of useful knowledge.

Sure the like was never heard of since the cruel acts of Nero's,
When he kilt the saints because they wouldn't own his gods and heroes ;
We '11 defy them to discover what we are above concealing,
And their Saxon insolence we '11 meet with native Irish feeling.

MISS VIOLET AND HER "OFFERS."

CHAPTER VIII.

The crash of the looking-glass of course brought the servants into
the room ; and, by the time the pieces were swept up, and I had put
Jujube and the other bird into the cage, and the scene was over, the
REVEREND Mr. Blare had recovered his usual sleek tranquillity. He
was good enough to tell me not to be discomposed about these little
worldly trials, which, however vexatious they might appear, were
nothing to what missionaries and their converts in the interior of
Africa were undergoing every day. And to bring my mind into a
proper state for what was to follow, he pulled out a Report of the
Dlapham Rise Auxiliary Junction Branch of the British and Abyssinian
Anti-Pelagian School Society, and read a most affecting letter from
Dne Brother Clammy, an Abyssinian correspondent, who stated that
he had recently been privileged to yoke himself together in marriage
with Sister Yasuti Gubbins, also an agent of the Society. But the
sister had found favour in the eyes of King Quoppo Bungo, the chief
of a tiibe to whom she and the brother had paid a visit; and his
Majesty had not only been graciously pleased to insist on being present
at the wedding, but, in the exuberance of his good-humour, had ordered
one of the bridesmaids (a native convert) to be cooked for his supper
and that of the happy pair.

Replacing the Clapham Rise Report in his pocket, Mr. Blare looked
at me with a most elaborate smile of exceeding duration, and then,
in an oily voice, asked me whether I thought I should have courage
to become, like the dear sister of whom he had read to me, a labourer
in the vineyard of duty. I had managed to recover my amiability
(which, indeed, I felt ashamed of myself for having lost, for Mr. Blare
had frightened my birds by mere accident, and could not have meant to
annoy me), and so I answered, laughingly, that I was afraid I should
make a poor labourer in any cause, but I thought that what duty I
ought to do must lie a little nearer than Abyssinia. But I supposed
Sister Gubbins had been a lady without any relations or friends to
whom she could be of service, and that the neighbourhood in which she
had lived, when at home, had stood in no need of assistance. If that
were so, I could admire the philanthropy which had led her to a distant
□art of the world.

The Reverend Ichabod Blare shook his h?ad, and said pityingly

—" An old, common-place argument, unworthy of you, my dear
Miss Brompton. It has been urged and answered thousands of
times."

" I—I assure you," I said (ashamed that I should have been so
ignorant), "that I did not think of an argument. I only said what
came into my mind."

" Utterly unworthy," he continued, as if the words were the regular
form (and I suspect they are) in which to meet the objection. " Look
into the Times, and you will see that subscriptions of hundreds of thou-
sands of pounds, for doing good in the Antipodes, attest how little value
seriously-minded people attach to your conditions."

" I am sure," I replied, " that I ought not to contest such a matter,
or any other matter, indeed; for I am sadly ignorant. But papa
was lately reading to me, from the same Times, that, in London only,
one person out of every twenty who rise in the morning, has no means
of food or shelter for the day and coming night, except what may be
afforded by accident or crime. And I think he said, that as there
were about two millions of people in London, this would make about
one hundred thousand driven every day to beg, or to do wrong, in order
to keep life in them, poor creatures. Perhaps—but, mind, I am not
arguing—some of these thousands of pounds that go to the Antipodes
might do more good if they were spent in helping our own unfortunate
neighbours."

I quite coloured at having made so long a speech to a clergyman.

" So much for poor human instinct, poor human reason," he said,
smiling. " Let us who know better be thankful."

I saw no objection to this arrangement, and, as just then Emma came
in to say that lunch was ready, I thought I would imitate papa, in a
small way.

" Do you like sardines, Mr. Blare ?" I asked. " Papa has brought
down some which he declares are gold fish. Will you come and try
them?"

The Reverend Mr. Blare immediately offered me his arm, for
which I saw no particular occasion, and we went into the other room,
where, though he modestly declared he was very partial to the
sardines, he showed becoming impartiality by also feasting very heartily
upon everything else, not forgetting papa's pale starry, of which he
nearly finished a bottle. I took up some crochet, not to seem to hurry
him, but every time I looked up, I observed that Mr. Blare was
staring at me in an extraordinary manner.

" You are knitting," he suddenly said, after a long silence.

I was doing nothing of the kind, but men are dreadfully stupid about
such matters, and confound all our work most absurdly. And yet they
think us such frivolous ill-informed things, if we ask whether prisoners
are ever tried in the Court of Chancery, or whether handicaps are some
kind of jockey's costume, or why a second reading of a bill in Parlia-
ment should be made more fuss about than a first.

" Not exactly knitting," I said, " but-"

" Yes, you are," he said, quite peremptorily; "a knhting
which, perhaps, you reck not of, but which is good abiding work,
nevertheless."

I thought that he had been taking in the Family Herald;_ and was
going to retail to me one of the capital American stories papa is so fond
of. So I looked up, prepared to laugh as soon as he should explain the
riddle.

" A knitting of hearts," he said, solemnly, "to be unravelled only
when this valley shall have been traversed."

I do not know how I looked then, or indeed during the rest of the
interview; but the Reverend Ichabod probably did, for he got up
rather hastily, came round to me, drew a chair very near me, and,
sitting down, rested himself slopingly on the table, so as to command
a good view of my face.

" Miss Brompton," he said, " I came here this day for a purpose
which (Providence willing) I will now carry out. What I have to say
may surprise you, but I have observed that you have received the gift
of humility and self-abasement, and I do not fear that you will be
puffed up." First, I would tell you of a providential occurrence which
has happened to myself. I have been guided to purchase a chapel at
the west end of the town, and I have bought it cheaply, for the seller
was in straitened circumstances, and clutched at my ready money,
though I offered him far less than his worldly cunning induced him to
ask. With a small outlay, and due exertions on my part, I trust to
find in this speculation not only a good investment, but the means of
an ample income. There is no place near my purchase where the
inhabitants of the locality can hear what I shall be privileged to tell
them. The parish church is well attended, but the incumbent is old,
and I doubt not to thin his ranks. All promises well. But this is not
enough for me—1 know not whether you divine what I would go on
to say." . .

He actually tried to take my hand ; but I put it into my crochet-
box to be out of his wav.

" You wish papa to take sittings, I suppose ? I must refer you to
him ; he has views of his own on these subjects, as you know."

" You must, indeed, refer me to him!" cries Mr. Blare, in a sort of
hallowed enthusiasm ; "but not about a holding, to be renewed quarterly