Newton Forster Part 35

"I did, brother," replied Edward, "I thought it appropriate."

"Humph! really can't see why. Why did you not call her Sukey, or some name fit for a Christian? Amber! Amber's a gum, is it not? Stop, let's see what Johnson says."

The lawyer went to a case of books which were in the next room, and returned with a quarto.

"Now," said he, seating himself; "AG--AL--AM--Amba.s.sador--Amba.s.sadress-- Amber! humph! here it is, 'A yellow transparent substance of a gummous or bituminous consistence, but of a resinous taste, and a smell like oil of turpentine; chiefly found in the Baltic sea or the coast of Prussia.'

Humph! 'Some have imagined it to consist of the tears of birds; others the'--humph!--'of a beast; others the sc.u.m of the Lake Cephesis, near the Atlantic; others a congelation in some fountains, where it is found swimming like pitch.' Really, brother," continued the lawyer, fixing his eyes on the little girl, and shutting the book, "I can't see the a.n.a.logy."

"Be her G.o.dfather, my dear brother, and call her any name you please."

"Humph!"

"Pray, papa," said Amber, turning to Edward Forster, "what's the meaning of humph?"

"Humph!" repeated the lawyer, looking hard at Amber.

"It implies yes or no, as it may be," replied Edward Forster, smiling.

"I never heard any one say it before, papa. You're not angry with me, sir?" continued Amber, turning round to John Forster.

"No, not angry, little girl; but I'm too busy to talk to you--or indeed with you, brother Edward. Have you any thing more to say?"

"Nothing, my dear brother, if I have your promise."

"Well, you have it; but what am I to do with her, G.o.d only knows! I wish you had kept better hours. You mentioned some clothes which might identify her to her relations; pray let me have them, for I shall have the greatest pleasure in restoring her to them, as soon as possible, after she is once in my hands."

"Here they are, brother," replied Edward, taking a small packet from his coat-pocket: "you had better take charge of them now; and may G.o.d bless you for having relieved my mind from so heavy a load!"

"Humph! by taking it on my own shoulders," muttered John, as he walked to the iron safe, to deposit the packet of linen; then returning to the table, "Have you any thing more to say, brother?"

"Only to ask you where I may find my brother Nicholas?"

"That I can't tell; my nephew told me somewhere down the river; but, it's a long way from here to the Nore. Nephew's a fine lad; I sent him off to the East Indies."

"I am sorry then that I have no chance of seeing him:--but you are busy, brother?"

"I have told you so three times, as plain as I could speak?"

"I will no longer trespa.s.s on your time. We return home to-morrow morning; and, as I cannot expect ever to see you again, G.o.d bless you, my dear John! and farewell, I am afraid I may say, in this world at least, farewell for ever!"

Edward held out his hand to his brother. It was taken with considerable emotion. "Farewell, brother, farewell!--I'll not forget."

"Good-bye, sir," said Amber, going close up to John Forster.

"Good-bye, my little girl," replied he, looking earnestly in her face; and then, as if thawing towards her, as he scanned her beautiful and expressive features, removing his spectacles and kissing her, "Good-bye."

"Oh! papa," cried Amber, as she went out of the room, "he kissed me!"

"Humph!" said John Forster, as the door closed upon them.

The spectacles were put on, and the reading of the brief immediately continued.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

_Strickland_.

"These doings in my house distract me.

I met a fine gentleman, when I inquired who He was--why, he came to Clarinda. I met A footman too, and he came to Clarinda.

My wife had the character of a virtuous Woman--"

_Suspicious Husband_.

"Let us no more contend Each other, blamed enough elsewhere, but strive In offices of love, how we may lighten Each other's burden in our share of woe."

MILTON.

I do not know a spot on the globe which astonishes and delights, upon your first landing, as the island of Madeira. The voyager embarks, and is in all probability confined to his cabin, suffering under the dreadful protraction of seasickness. Perhaps he has left England in the gloomy close of the autumn, or the frigid concentration of an English winter. In a week, or even in a shorter period, he again views that terra firma which he had quitted with regret, and which in his sufferings he would have given half that he possessed to regain. When he lands upon the island, what a change! Winter has become summer, the naked trees which be left are exchanged for the most luxuriant and varied foliage, snow and frost for warmth and splendour; the scenery of the temperate zone for the profusion and magnificence of the tropics; fruit which he had never before seen, supplies for the table unknown to him; a bright sky, a glowing sun, hills covered with vines, a deep-blue sea, a picturesque and novel costume; all meet and delight the eye, just at the precise moment, when to have been landed even upon a barren island would have been considered as a luxury. Add to all this, the unbounded hospitality of the English residents, a sojourn too short to permit satiety and then is it to be wondered that the island of Madeira is a "green spot" in the memory of all those who land there, or that they quit it with regret?

The Bombay Castle had not been two hours at anchor before the pa.s.sengers had availed themselves of an invitation from one of the English residents, and were quartered in a splendid house, which hooked upon a square and one of the princ.i.p.al churches in the city of Funchal. While the gentlemen amused themselves at the extensive range of windows with the novelty of the scene, and the ladies retired to their apartments to complete the hasty toilet of their disembarkation, Captain Drawlock was very busy in the counting-house below, with the master of the house.

There were so many pipes of Madeira for the Honourable Company; so many for the directors' private cellars, besides many other commissions for friends, which Captain Drawlock had undertaken to execute; for at that period Madeira wine had not been so calumniated as it latterly has been.

A word upon this subject.--I am a mortal enemy to every description of humbug; and I believe there is as much in the medical world as in any other. Madeira wine had for a century been in high and deserved reputation, when on a sudden some fashionable physician discovers that it contained more acid than sherry. Whether he was a sleeping partner in some Spanish house, or whether he had received a present of a few pipes of sherry, that he might turn the scale of public favour towards that wine, I know not; but certain it is, that it became fashionable with all medical gentlemen to prescribe sherry; and when once any thing becomes fashionable, _c'est une affaire decide_.

I do not pretend to be much of a pathologist; but on reading Mr F---'s a.n.a.lysis on the component parts of wine, I observed that in one hundred parts there are perhaps twenty-two parts of acid in Madeira, and nineteen in sherry; so that, in fact, if you reduce your gla.s.s of Madeira wine, just _one sip_ in quant.i.ty, you will imbibe no more acid than in a full gla.s.s of sherry; and when we consider the variety of acids in sugar and other compounds, which abound in culinary preparations, the fractional quant.i.ty upon which has been grounded the abuse of Madeira wine, appears to be most ridiculous.

But if not a pathologist, I have a most decided knowledge of what is good wine; and if the gout should some day honour me with a visit, I shall at least have the consolation to know that I have by potation most honestly _earned_ it.

But allowing that the medical gentlemen are correct, still their good intentions are frustrated by the knavery of the world; and the result of their prescriptions is, that people drink much more acid than they did before. I do every justice to good old sherry when it does make its appearance at table; it is a n.o.ble wine when aged and unsophisticated from its youth; but for once that you meet with it genuine, you are twenty times disappointed. When Madeira wine was in vogue, the island could not produce the quant.i.ty required for consumption, and the vintage from the north side of the island, or of Teneriffe, was subst.i.tuted.

This adulteration no doubt was one cause of its losing its well established reputation. But Madeira wine has a quality which in itself proves its superiority over all other wines--namely, that although no other wine can be pa.s.sed off as Madeira, yet with Madeira the wine-merchants may imitate any other wine that is in demand. What is the consequence? that Madeira, not being any longer in request as Madeira, now that sherry is the "correct thing," and there not being sufficient of the latter to meet the increased demand, most of the wine vended as sherry is made from the inferior Madeira wines. Reader, if you have ever been in Spain, you may have seen the Xerez or sherry wine brought from the mountains to be put into the cask. A raw goat-skin, with the neck-part and the four legs sewed up, forms a leathern bag, containing perhaps from fifteen to twenty gallons. This is the load of one man, who brings it down on his shoulder exposed to the burning rays of the sun. When it arrives, it is thrown down on the sand, to swelter in the heat with the rest and remains there probably for days before it is transferred into the cask. It is this proceeding which gives to sherry that peculiar leather tw.a.n.g which distinguishes it from other wines--a tw.a.n.g easy to imitate by throwing into a cask of Cape wine a pair of old boots, and allowing them to remain a proper time. Although the public refuse to drink Madeira, as Madeira, they are in fact drinking it in every way disguised--as port, as sherry, etcetera; and it is a well-known fact that the poorer wines from the north side of the island are landed in the London Docks, and shipped off to the Continent, from whence they reappear in bottles as "peculiarly fine flavoured hock!"

Now, as it is only the indifferent wines which are thus turned into sherry,--and the more inferior the wine, the more acid it contains,--I think I have made out a clear case that people are drinking more acid than they did before this wonderful discovery of the medical gentlemen, who have for some years led the public by the nose.

There are, however, some elderly persons of my acquaintance who are not to be dissuaded from drinking Madeira, but who continue to destroy themselves by the use of this acid, which perfumes the room when the cork is extracted. I did represent to one of them, that it was a species of suicide, after what the doctors had discovered; but he replied, in a very gruff tone of voice, "May be, sir; but you can't teach an old dog new tricks!"

I consider that the public ought to feel very much indebted to me for this _expose_. Madeira wine is very low, while sherry is high in price.

They have only to purchase a cask of Madeira and flavour it with Wellington boots or ladies' shippers, as it may suit their palates. The former will produce the high-coloured, the latter the pale sherry.

Further, I consider that the merchants of Madeira are bound to send me a letter of thanks, with a pipe of Bual, to prove its sincerity. Now I recollect Stoddart did promise me some wine when he was last in England; but I suppose he has forgotten it.

But from the produce I must return to the island and my pa.s.sengers. The first day of their arrival they eat their dinner, took their coffee, and returned to bed early to enjoy a comfortable night after so many of constant pitching and tossing. The next morning the ladies were much better, and received the visits of all the captains of the India ships, and also of the captain of the frigate who escorted them.

The officers of the Bombay Castle had been invited to dinner; and the first-mate not being inclined to leave the ship, Newton had for one accepted the invitation. On his arrival he discovered in the captain of the frigate his former acquaintance, Captain Carrington, in whose ship he had obtained a pa.s.sage from the West Indies, and who on the former being paid off had been appointed to the command of the Boadicea, Captain Carrington was delighted to meet Newton; and the attention which he paid to him, added to the encomiums bestowed when Newton was out of bearing, raised him very high in the opinion, not only of Captain Drawlock, but also in the estimation of the ladies. At the request of Captain Carrington Newton was allowed to remain on sh.o.r.e till their departure from the island; and from this circ.u.mstance he became more intimate with the ladies than he would in all probability have otherwise been in the whole course of the voyage. We must pa.s.s over the gallop up to Nostra Senhora da Monte, an expedition opposed by Captain Drawlock on the score of his responsibility; but he was over-ruled by Captain Carrington, who declared that Newton and he were quite sufficient convoy. We must pa.s.s over the many compliments paid to Isabel Revel by Captain Carrington, who appeared desperately in hove after an acquaintance of four-and-twenty hours, and who discovered a defect in the Boadicea which would occupy two or three days to make good, that he might be longer in her company; but we will not pa.s.s over one circ.u.mstance which occurred during their week's sojourn at this delightful island.

A certain Portuguese lady of n.o.ble birth had been left a widow with two daughters, and a fine estate to share between them. The daughters were handsome; but the estate was so much handsomer, that it set all the mandolins of the Portuguese inamoratos strumming under the windows of the lady's abode from sunset to the dawn of day.

Now it did so occur that a young English clerk in a mercantile house, who had a fresh complexion and a clean shirt to boast of (qualifications unknown to the Portuguese), won the heart of the eldest daughter; and the old lady, who was not a very strict Catholic, gave her consent to this heretical union. The Catholic priests, who had long been trying to persuade the old lady to shut up her daughters in a convent, and endow the church with her property, expressed a holy indignation at the intended marriage. The Portuguese gentlemen, who could not brook the idea of so many fair hills of vines going away to a stranger were equally indignant: in short, the whole Portuguese population of the island were in arms; but the old lady, who had always contrived to have her way before her husband's death, was not inclined to be thwarted now that she was her own mistress; and, notwithstanding threats and expostulations from all quarters, she awaited but the arrival of an English man-of-war that the ceremony might be performed, there being at that time no Protestant clergyman on the island; for the reader must know that a marriage on board of a king's ship, by the captain duly entered in the log-book, is considered as valid as if the ceremony were performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

I once married couple on board of a little ten-gun brig of which I condescended to take the command, to oblige the first lord of the Admiralty; offered, I believe to _provide_ for me, and rid the Board of all future solicitations for employment or promotion.

It was one of my sailors, who had come to a determination to make an honest woman of Poll and an a.s.s of himself, at one and the same time.