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I came down from the chair, and Mr Brownrigg being the nearest of my guests, and wide awake, for he had been standing, and had indeed been listening to every word according to his ability, I shook hands with him. And positively there was some meaning in the grasp with which he returned mine.
The only other visitors I had that day were an old surgeon in the navy, who since his retirement had practised for many years in the neighbourhood, and was still at the call of any one who did not think him too old-fashioned for even here the fashions, though decidedly elderly young ladies by the time they arrived, held their sway none the less imperiously and Mr Brownrigg, the churchwarden.
Mother Country is a very bad parent to me! Mother Brownrigg herself could scarcely be worse. If ever I can pay my debts, I may return. But, meanwhile, my good old tutor, what will you think of me? You to whom my sole return for so much pains, taken in vain, is another mouth to feed! And no money to pay for the board! Yet you'll not grudge the child a place at your table, will you?
''Twas thou that smooth'd'st the rough-rugg'd bed of pain. 'Smooth'd'st! Would the teeth of a crocodile not splinter under that word? It seems to us as if Mr. Bowyer's verses ought to be boiled before they can be read. And when he says, 'Twas thou, what is the wretch talking to? Can he be apostrophizing the knout? We very much fear it. Brownrigg? The next pet was Sir Alexander Ball.
"But you mustn't talk more now," said Dr Duncan. So I shook hands with Mr Brownrigg, and we parted. I fear, from what I know of my churchwarden, that he went home with the conviction that he had done perfectly right; and that the parson had made an apology for interfering with a churchwarden who was doing his best to uphold the dignity of Church and State.
His mouth indicated great firmness, not unmingled with sweetness, and even with humour. He smiled as he rose, but looked embarrassed, glancing first at the table, then at me, and then at Mr Brownrigg, as if begging somebody to tell him what to say. But I did not leave him a moment in this perplexity.
On the 27th of November 1881 he started in the steam pinnace of the London, accompanied by his steward, a native interpreter, and a writer, with a crew consisting of a coxswain, Alfred Yates, three seamen, and three stokers. Captain Brownrigg was going upon a tour of inspection among the boats engaged in repressing the slave trade, and the various depots.
Durlacher, "you've introduced me to a diplomatist. She says what she means without telling you what she says." Traill thought that it all alluded to the portrait of James Brownrigg imagined that Sally agreed with him, yet did not like to contradict his sister, and he laughed with amusement at the smartness of her retort. But Sally returned to her seat, conscious that she had made an enemy.
The gentlemen at Todgers's had a merry habit, too, of bestowing upon him, for the time being, the name of any notorious malefactor or minister; and sometimes when current events were flat they even sought the pages of history for these distinctions; as Mr Pitt, Young Brownrigg, and the like.
Mother Country is a very bad parent to me! Mother Brownrigg herself could scarcely be worse. If ever I can pay my debts, I may return. But, meanwhile, my good old tutor, what will you think of me? You to whom my sole return for so much pains, taken in vain, is another mouth to feed! And no money to pay for the board! Yet you'll not grudge the child a place at your table, will you?