Stray Pearls
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Charlotte M. Yonge >> Stray Pearls
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And her husband--Mr. Darpent, as every one called him, with true
English pronunciation--it amused us to see how much of an Englishman
he had become, though Harry Merrycourt told us the squires had began
by calling him Frenchy, and sneering at his lack of taste and skill
in their sports; but they came to him whenever they had a knotty
point to disentangle in law or justice, they turned to him at
Quarter-Sessions for help; and though they laughed at the plans of
farming, gardening, and planting he had brought from Holland, or had
learned from Mr. Evelyn of Says Court, still, when they saw that his
trees grew, his crops prospered, and his sheep fetched a good price
at market, some of them began to declare he was only too clever, and
one or two of the more enlightened actually came privately to ask his
advice.
It was pleasant to see him in his library, among books he had picked
up, one by one, at stalls in London, where he read and wrote and
taught his sons, never long without the door being opened by Nan to
see whether his fire needed a fresh log, or whether his ink-stand
were full, or to announce that the pigs were in the garden, and turn
out all his pupils in pursuit! Interrupt as she would, she never
seemed to come amiss to him.
He was glad to talk over all the affairs of our country with us. In
his office in London he had of course been abreast with facts, but he
was keenly interested in all the details of the Prince's return to
favour, of the Cardinal's death, of the King's assumption of the
entire management of State affairs, and of the manner in which the
last hopes of the Parliament of Paris had been extinguished. France
was--as he allowed to my eager son--beginning to advance rapidly on
the road of glory, it might be of universal empire. He agreed to it,
but, said he, with a curious perverse smile: 'For all that, M. le
Marquis, I remain thankful that my wife's inheritance is on this side
of the Channel, and though I myself may be but an exile and a
fugitive, I rejoice that my sons and their children after them will
not grow up where there is brilliancy and grandeur without, but
beneath them corruption and a people's misery!'
THE END.
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