Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1859-11-04
MIR. GILFIL's LOVE STORY.
CHAPETR VI.
Complete in Eight Numbers---NO. 4

In three months from the time of Caterina's
adoption--namely in the late autumn of 1853
the chimneys of Cheverel Manor were sending
up unwonted smoke, and the servants were
awaiting In excitement the return of their mas
ter and mistress after two years ABSENCE
Great was the astonishment of Mrs. Bellamy,
the housekeeper, when Mr.. Warren lifted a lit
tie black-eyed child out of the carriage, aud
great was Mrs. Sharp's sense of superior infor-
nation and experience, ,as she detailed Caterina's
history, interspersed with copious comments, to
the rest of the upper servants that evening, as
they were taking comfortable glass of grog
together in the housekeeper's room.
A pleasant room it was, as any party need
desise to muster in on cold November evening.
The place alone was picture wide and
deep recess with low brick altar in the middle,
where great logs of dry woodsent myriad sparks
up tho dark chimney throat; and over the
front of the recess large wooden entablature
bearing this motto, finely carved in old English
letters, "FEAR COP AND HONOR THE KING. -
And beyond the party, who formed half-moon
with their chairs and well-furnished table
round this bright fireplace, what space of
chiaroscuro for the imagination to revel in y
Stretching across the far end of the room, what
an oak table, high enough surely for Homers
gods, standing on four massive legs, bossed and
bulging like sculptured urns and, lining the
distant wall, what vast cupboards, suggestive OF
inexhaustible apricot jam and promiscuous
buffers perqusites A stray picture or two
had found their way down there, and made
agreeable patches of dark brown on the buff
colored walls. High over the Understanding
double door hung one which, from some lndca-
tions of a face looming out of blackness, might
by great synthetic effort be pronounced a
Magdalen. Considerably lower down hung the
slmilitude of hat and feathers, with portions
of ruff, stated by Mrs. Bellamy to represent
Sir Francis Bacon, who invented gunpowder
and-iu her opinion, ' might ha been better
employed
But this evening the mind is but slightly ar
rested by the great Verulam and is in the humo
to think dead philosopher less interesting thai
living gardener, who sits conspicuous in tn
''lf circle round the fireplace. Mr. Bates i
habitually guest in the housekeeper's room o
an evening" preferring the social pleasures ther
the feast of gossip and the flow of grog-to
bachelors char in his charming thatched cot
tage on an island, where every sound is remot
but the cawing of rocks and the screaming O
wild geese-poetic sounds, doubtless, but, hu
manly speaking, not convivial.
Mr.. Bates was by no means an average per
son, to be passed without special notice. Fl
was sturdy Yorkshireman, approaching forty
whose face Nature seemed to have colored whe
she was in hurry, and had no time to atten
to nuances, for every inch of him visible abov
his neckcloth was of one impartial redness s
that when he was at some distance your imagi
nation was at liberty to place his lips anywher
between his nose and chin. Seen closer, hi
lips were dscerned to be of peculiar cut, an
fancy this had something to do with the pc
culiarity of his dialect, which, as we shall sec
was individual rather than provincial. MI
Bates was rther distinguished from the CON
mon herd by perpetual blinking of the eyes
and this, together with the red-roso tint of h
complexion, and a way he had of hanging h
head forward, and rolling it from side to side
he walked, gave him the air of Bacchus IN
blue apron, who, in the present reduced circun
stances of Olympus, had taken to the manag
ment of his own vines. Yet, as guttons al
often thin, SO sober men are often rubicund
and Mr.. Bates was sober, with that mani
British, ehurchman like sobriety which can CT;
ry a few glAsses of grog without any perceptib
clari6caton of ideas.
Dang my boottens y observed Mr.. Bate
who, at the conclusion of Mrs. Sharp's narr
tive, felt himself urged to his strongest inte
lection, ' it's what shouldn't ha' looked
from Sir Cristhifer an my ledy, to bring fu