United States or Saint Lucia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Now, sir," cried I, "if you believe that I drew the caricatures of you and Mrs Bately did I draw this, which is by the same person?" And I handed up to the Dominie the caricature of my mother, which Mr Knapps had inadvertently produced at the bottom of the rest. Mr Knapps turned white as a sheet. The Dominie looked at the caricature, and was silent for some time. At last he turned to the usher.
The return of the troops from the Franco-Prussian War, with her husband as officer among them, brought forth three patriotic songs, two male choruses, and the Kaiser Wilhelm March for orchestra, performed at a court festival of rejoicing. Her second operatic attempt was a setting of Goethe's "Jery und Bately," which met with deserved success.
The snuff had the effect of partially awakening him from his lethargy. "Six o'clock did you say, Mrs Bately? Are the boys washed and in the schoolroom? I will rise speedily yet I am overcome with much heaviness. Delapsus somnus ab " and the Dominie snored again. I renewed my attempts, and gradually succeeded.
He began to feel a little ease, when in came the matron. "Why, what's all this!" said she, in a querulous tone. "Jacob here, and all my cupboard on the table. Jacob, how dare you go to my cupboard?" "It was the Dominie, Mrs Bately, who looked there for something for me to eat, and he has been caught in a rat-trap." "Serve him right; I have forbade him that cupboard. Have I not, Mr Dobbs?"
I couldna, for the life o' me, keep twa human creatures pleading for shelter, wha kendna whar to gang in a mirk nicht like this. Did I do wrang, Jamie?" "I fear you have, Mary," said the man. "If Captain Bately finds them here when he arrives he is such a devil!
A few days passed away, when Mr Knapps informed the Dominie that I had been caricaturing him and Mrs Bately, the matron, and that he had proofs of it. I had then gone to bed; the Dominie was much surprised, and thought it impossible that I could be so ungrateful.
Verily, Jacob, I do prophesy that she will lead him into error, yea, perhaps into perdition." "I trust not, sir," replied I; but the Dominie made no answer. For half-an-hour he was in deep and serious thought, during which Mrs Bately entered, and spreading a cloth, brought in from the other room some rashers of bacon and eggs, upon which I made a hasty and hearty meal.
"Here is one drawing, sir," continued Mr Knapps, "which proves to me that Jacob Faithful is the party; in which you and Mrs Bately are shown up to ridicule. Who would have been aware that the candle went out in your study, except Jacob Faithful?" "I perceive," replied the Dominie, looking at it through his spectacles, when put into his hand, "the arcana of the study have been violated."
Have I not felt thy presence everywhere? Do not I astonish my worthy coadjutor, Mistress Bately, the matron, by calling her by the name of Mary, when I had always before addressed her by her baptismal name of Deborah? Nay, have not the boys in the classes discovered my weakness, and do they not shout out Mary in the hours of play? Mare periculosum et turbidum hast thou been to me.
Jery und Bately is a charming natural picture of Swiss manners, and in the spirit and form of the best French operettes; Scherz List und Bache again is a true opera buffa, full of Italian Lazzi. Die Mitschuldigen is a comedy of common life in rhyme, and after the French rules.
Word Of The Day