THE " GOINGS ON" AT BRAMSBY HALL. 295 



and that the unhappy poet had managed to crawl away on his feet. 

 Thinking it useless to pursue the search any farther, and half sorry 

 that Mr. Le Grange had escaped, I returned to Bramsby, examining 

 every wet and dry ditch on the way, and calling out his name in 

 tones affectedly mournful. Overcome with anxiety my aunt had re- 

 tired to bed, my uncle was sleeping off the third bottle in his arm- 

 chair, and Bessy was on the way to her room. Worn out by my 

 exertions, I followed almost immediately, leaving my uncle to the 

 care of Joe, who knew his ways quite well. The sun was high in the 

 heaven (as the novelists say) before I made my appearance at the 

 breakfast- table next morning. I found my uncle stalking up and 

 down the room in that blessed temper which usually afflicts the lords 

 of the creation when the ladies of the creation keep them waiting for 

 breakfast. He had heard our discoveries of the preceding evening 

 from Joe ; but, after the manner of 'squires, he was the more angry 

 with me because he had the less excuse for it. 



" Have you heard any thing of your mother this morning?" he 

 said to Bessy, who just then entered the room like a ray of sunlight 

 breaking into a prison. Mrs. B. had for some time slept apart from 

 her husband on pretence of indisposition. Bessy knew nothing of 

 her. 



" Tell one of the maids to call your mistress," said my uncle to a 

 servant, who was just setting the urn on the table. 



" Please, Sir," said the man, " Sarah and Elizabeth have been 

 knocking at Missis's door this half hour, and they can't get no an- 

 swer, nor hear no noise whatsomever." 



This looked serious all rushed up stairs ^piaster and young mis- 

 tress, grooms, cook, and housemaids, all of us knocked and bawled 

 to no purpose. 



" The more you cry out, the more she won't answer," said Joe to 

 me, in a whisper ; " I warrant she's a rum one." 



My uncle's hasty temper could endure no more : with desperate 

 foot he dashed at the door, laying open the inmost recesses of his 

 wife's bedchamber to the leering, curious eyes of the- menial crowd 

 without. All were in the room in a second and there we found, 

 not Mrs. Bramsby, but " O shame ! O sorrow ! and O womankind !" 

 we found a wet shoe of the masculine gender, the hat, the trousers, 

 and the frilled and frittered shirt which belonged to Mr. Le Grange. 

 A little inquiry explained the whole. Mrs. Bramsby had met her 

 enamoured poet as he was crawling back to the hall, wet, spattered 

 with mud, and pale with affright. Stung with fury at the trick 

 which they perceived had been played, they resolved to fly to some 

 bower of bliss where they might love undisturbed. Early that 

 morning my uncle lost a wife, a wife's relation, and two of the best 

 horses in his stable. My uncle behaved with praiseworthy fortitude 

 on the occasion, not even pursuing the fugitives. The resignation 

 with which I bore the loss of an aunt deserves, I think, nearly equal 

 praise. One more settlement I drew in the course of my profession- 

 it was the marriage settlement of Robert Bramsby and Elizabeth 

 Bramsby, of Bramsby ; and my time was so fully and so pleasantly 

 occupied, that I had no leisure to hate any one for a considerable 

 time afterwards. W. P. 



