CHAPTER XVIII

The rumour circulated that Sir Austin Feverel, the recluse of Raynham,

the rank misogynist, the rich baronet, was in town, looking out a bride

for his only son and uncorrupted heir. Doctor Benjamin Bairam was the

excellent authority. Doctor Bairam had safely delivered Mrs. Deborah

Gossip of this interesting bantling, which was forthwith dandled in

dozens of feminine laps. Doctor Bairam could boast the first interview

with the famous recluse. He had it from his own lips that the object of

the baronet was to look out a bride for his only son and uncorrupted

heir; "and," added the doctor, "she'll be lucky who gets him." Which was

interpreted to mean, that he would be a catch; the doctor probably

intending to allude to certain extraordinary difficulties in the way of a

choice.

A demand was made on the publisher of The Pilgrim's Scrip for all his

outstanding copies. Conventionalities were defied. A summer-shower of

cards fell on the baronet's table.

He had few male friends. He shunned the Clubs as nests of scandal. The

cards he contemplated were mostly those of the sex, with the husband, if

there was a husband, evidently dragged in for propriety's sake. He

perused the cards and smiled. He knew their purpose. What terrible light

Thompson and Bairam had thrown on some of them! Heavens! in what a state

was the blood of this Empire.

Before commencing his campaign he called on two ancient intimates, Lord

Heddon, and his distant cousin Darley Absworthy, both Members of

Parliament, useful men, though gouty, who had sown in their time a fine

crop of wild oats, and advocated the advantage of doing so, seeing that

they did not fancy themselves the worse for it. He found one with an

imbecile son and the other with consumptive daughters. "So much," he

wrote in the Note-book, "for the Wild Oats theory!"

Darley was proud of his daughters' white and pink skins. "Beautiful

complexions," he called them. The eldest was in the market, immensely

admired. Sir Austin was introduced to her. She talked fluently and

sweetly. A youth not on his guard, a simple school-boy youth, or even a

man, might have fallen in love with her, she was so affable and fair.

There was something poetic about her. And she was quite well, she said,

the baronet frequently questioning her on that point. She intimated that

she was robust; but towards the close of their conversation her hand

would now and then travel to her side, and she breathed painfully an

instant, saying, "Isn't it odd? Dora, Adela, and myself, we all feel the

same queer sensation--about the heart, I think it is--after talking

much."

Sir Austin nodded and blinked sadly, exclaiming to his soul, "Wild oats!

wild oats!"

He did not ask permission to see Dora and Adela.

Lord Heddon vehemently preached wild oats.

"It's all nonsense, Feverel," he said, "about bringing up a lad out of

the common way. He's all the better for a little racketing when he's

green--feels his bone and muscle learns to know the world. He'll never be

a man if he hasn't played at the old game one time in his life, and the

earlier the better. I've always found the best fellows were wildish once.

I don't care what he does when he's a green-horn; besides, he's got an

excuse for it then. You can't expect to have a man, if he doesn't take a

man's food. You'll have a milksop. And, depend upon it, when he does

break out he'll go to the devil, and nobody pities him. Look what those

fellows the grocers, do when they get hold of a young--what d'ye call

'em?--apprentice. They know the scoundrel was born with a sweet tooth.

Well! they give him the run of the shop, and in a very short time he

soberly deals out the goods, a devilish deal too wise to abstract a

morsel even for the pleasure of stealing. I know you have contrary

theories. You hold that the young grocer should have a soul above sugar.

It won't do! Take my word for it, Feverel, it's a dangerous experiment,

that of bringing up flesh and blood in harness. No colt will bear it, or

he's a tame beast. And look you: take it on medical grounds. Early

excesses the frame will recover from: late ones break the constitution.

There's the case in a nutshell. How's your son?"

"Sound and well!" replied Sir Austin. "And yours?"

"Oh, Lipscombe's always the same!" Lord Heddon sighed peevishly. "He's

quiet--that's one good thing; but there's no getting the country to take

him, so I must give up hopes of that."

Lord Lipscombe entering the room just then, Sir Austin surveyed him, and

was not astonished at the refusal of the country to take him.

"Wild oats!" he thought, as he contemplated the headless, degenerate,

weedy issue and result.

Both Darley Absworthy and Lord Heddon spoke of the marriage of their

offspring as a matter of course. "And if I were not a coward," Sir Austin

confessed to himself, "I should stand forth and forbid the banns! This

universal ignorance of the inevitable consequence of sin is frightful!

The wild oats plea is a torpedo that seems to have struck the world, and

rendered it morally insensible." However, they silenced him. He was

obliged to spare their feelings on a subject to him so deeply sacred. The

healthful image of his noble boy rose before him, a triumphant living

rejoinder to any hostile argument.

He was content to remark to his doctor, that he thought the third

generation of wild oats would be a pretty thin crop!

Families against whom neither Thompson lawyer nor Bairam physician could

recollect a progenitorial blot, either on the male or female side, were

not numerous. "Only," said the doctors "you really must not be too

exacting in these days, my dear Sir Austin. It is impossible to contest

your principle, and you are doing mankind incalculable service in calling

its attention to this the gravest of its duties: but as the stream of

civilization progresses we must be a little taken in the lump, as it

were. The world is, I can assure you--and I do not look only above the

surface, you can believe--the world is awakening to the vital importance

of the question."

"Doctor," replied Sir Austin, "if you had a pure-blood Arab barb would

you cross him with a screw?"

"Decidedly not," said the doctor.

"Then permit me to say, I shall employ every care to match my son

according to his merits," Sir Austin returned. "I trust the world is

awakening, as you observe. I have been to my publisher, since my arrival

in town, with a manuscript 'Proposal for a New System of Education of our

British Youth,' which may come in opportunely. I think I am entitled to

speak on that subject."

"Certainly," said the doctor. "You will admit, Sir Austin, that, compared

with continental nations--our neighbours, for instance--we shine to

advantage, in morals, as in everything else. I hope you admit that?"

"I find no consolation in shining by comparison with a lower standard,"

said the baronet. "If I compare the enlightenment of your views--for you

admit my principle--with the obstinate incredulity of a country doctor's,

who sees nothing of the world, you are hardly flattered, I presume?"

Doctor Bairam would hardly be flattered at such a comparison, assuredly,

he interjected.

"Besides," added the baronet, "the French make no pretences, and thereby

escape one of the main penalties of hypocrisy. Whereas we!--but I am not

their advocate, credit me. It is better, perhaps, to pay our homage to

virtue. At least it delays the spread of entire corruptness."

Doctor Bairam wished the baronet success, and diligently endeavoured to

assist his search for a mate worthy of the pure-blood barb, by putting

several mamas, whom he visited, on the alert.