My own age,male or female?
Sir Peter tried hard to frown. The utmost he could do was to reply gravely, FEMALE! If I said you were too steady to need a tutor, it was because you have hitherto seemed little likely to be led out of your way by female allurements. Among your other studies may I inquire if you have included that which no man has ever yet thoroughly mastered,the study of women?
Certainly. Do you object to my catching another trout?
Certainly. Do you object to my catching another trout?
Trout beblessed, or the reverse. So you have studied woman. I should never have thought it. Where and when did you commence that department of science?
When? ever since I was ten years old. Where? first in your own house, then at college. Hush!a bite, and another trout left its native element and alighted on Sir Peters nose, whence it was solemnly transferred to the basket.
At ten years old, and in my own house! That flaunting hussy Jane, the under-housemaid
Jane! No, sir. Pamela, Miss Byron, Clarissa,females in Richardson, who, according to Dr. Johnson, taught the passions to move at the command of virtue. I trust for your sake that Dr. Johnson did not err in that assertion, for I found all these females at night in your own private apartments.
Oh! said Sir Peter, thats all?
All I remember at ten years old, replied Kenelm.
And at Mr. Welbys or at college, proceeded Sir Peter, timorously, was your acquaintance with females of the same kind?
Kenelm shook his head. Much worse: they were very naughty indeed at college.
I should think so, with such a lot of young fellows running after them.
Very few fellows run after the females. I meanrather avoid them.
So much the better.
No, my father, so much the worse; without an intimate knowledge of those females there is little use going to college at all.
Explain yourself.
Every one who receives a classical education is introduced into their society,Pyrrha and Lydia, Glycera and Corinna, and many more of the same sort; and then the females in Aristophanes, what do you say to them, sir?
Is it only females who lived two thousand or three thousand years ago, or more probably never lived at all, whose intimacy you have cultivated? Have you never admired any real women?
Real women! I never met one. Never met a woman who was not a sham, a sham from the moment she is told to be pretty-behaved, conceal her sentiments, and look fibs when she does not speak them. But if I am to learn sham life, I suppose I must put up with sham women.
Have you been crossed in love that you speak so bitterly of the sex?
I dont speak bitterly of the sex. Examine any woman on her oath, and shell own she is a sham, always has been, and always will be, and is proud of it.
I am glad your mother is not by to hear you. You will think differently one of these days. Meanwhile, to turn to the other sex, is there no young man of your own rank with whom you would like to travel?
Certainly not. I hate quarrelling.
As you please. But you cannot go quite alone: I will find you a good travelling-servant. I must write to town to-day about your preparations, and in another week or so I hope all will be ready. Your allowance will be whatever you like to fix it at; you have never been extravagant, andboyI love you. Amuse yourself, enjoy yourself, and come back cured of your oddities, but preserving your honour.
Sir Peter bent down and kissed his sons brow. Kenelm was moved; he rose, put his arm round his fathers shoulder, and lovingly said, in an undertone, If ever I am tempted to do a base thing, may I remember whose son I am: I shall be safe then. He withdrew his arm as he said this, and took his solitary way along the banks of the stream, forgetful of rod and line.
CHAPTER XIV
THE young man continued to skirt the side of the stream until he reached the boundary pale of the park. Here, placed on a rough grass mound, some former proprietor, of a social temperament, had built a kind of belvidere, so as to command a cheerful view of the high road below. Mechanically the heir of the Chillinglys ascended the mound, seated himself within the belvidere, and leaned his chin on his hand in a thoughtful attitude. It was rarely that the building was honoured by a human visitor: its habitual occupants were spiders. Of those industrious insects it was a well-populated colony. Their webs, darkened with dust and ornamented with the wings and legs and skeletons of many an unfortunate traveller, clung thick to angle and window-sill, festooned the rickety table on which the young man leaned his elbow, and described geometrical circles and rhomboids between the gaping rails that formed the backs of venerable chairs. One large black spiderwho was probably the oldest inhabitant, and held possession of the best place by the window, ready to offer perfidious welcome to every winged itinerant who might be tempted to turn aside from the high road for the sake of a little cool and reposerushed from its innermost penetralia at the entrance of Kenelm, and remained motionless in the centre of its meshes, staring at him. It did not seem quite sure whether the stranger was too big or not.