238 HALF HOURS. 



aforesaid, and I was meditating to astonish poor James when he 

 " returned," by " making his half crown a pound," when old Ben- 

 jamin, who had been some time withdrawn with the breakfast equi- 

 page, re-entered, consternation staring on his lack-lustre visage, and 

 informed us that three silver forks, and a salver of no mean dimen- 

 sions, of the same material, which he recollected too late, were on a 

 distant table in the hall whilst he was pleading within the breakfast- 

 room for the Rev. Mr. Carpenter, were gone ! gone irrecoverably, 

 " for they were not to be found in all the house.'' 



The poor Hectic had not crossed the threshold, and I could have 

 no doubts respecting the purlolner. The soi-disant Rev. Mr. Car<- 

 penter was in fact the son of a carpenter, of a person truly respecta- 

 ble in his own character and condition, who in my boyhood had been 

 frequently employed about my father's country mansion, and he 

 himself had been articled to the same trade. My change of name 

 and abode on succeeding to the property of a distant relative, and 

 probably the ravages of time on my outward man, had, I believe, 

 effectually sheltered me from his recognition, and borne him through 

 our late interview with a perfect unconsciousness of the peril of de- 

 tection and exposure into which he had run himself; but through 

 what quirk of fancy, or of metaphysical subtlety he had been tempted 

 to the adoption of an alias the most likely in the world to betray him 

 into such consequences, I leave to abler casuists than myself to de- 

 termine. Possibly, being " a lover of truth" by profession, he was 

 led to it by some notion of a compromise with conscience, John Car- 

 penter being a legitimate enough abbreviation of John the carpenter. 

 His real name was Hood (what changes might here be rung upon it 

 in wittier hands !) He was considered a remarkably clever boy ; 

 and he had been the best learner in the best school his native village 

 afforded; but he was of a turbulent and intractable temper. His 

 genius could not brook restraints, much less the ignominy of the 

 plane and rule so his poor father, yielding to his vehement impor- 

 tunity, liberated him from his indentures, and with infinite toil and 

 difficulty, procured means to get him equipped and admitted as a 

 servitor at Cambridge each, though in a different degree, buoyed 

 up with hopes that his talents, transplanted to a more congenial soil, 

 would germinate to future distinction. After the lapse of a few years 

 he came back to his native village, well qualified to be a senior 

 wrangler there, for he had been dismissed from his college with igno- 

 miny, and under suspicions which, if proved, would have entitled him 

 to the eminence of the gallows. But he had a plausible tongue, 

 which the schools had not failed to improve, and a powerful arm 

 wherewith to defend his logic ; and he soon stood unrivalled as a 

 village orator, and unquestioned as an enlightened champion of ple- 

 beian rights ; until his too forward zeal on the occasion of a sedi- 

 tious mob-rising once more brought him within the perils of legal 

 investigation, which he evaded by disappearing from the scene of 

 action. 1 saw him next in the character of an itinerant methodist 

 preacher, and subsequently learnt that he had gone abroad on a self- 

 appointed " mission to the heathen." All these traits rising upon my 

 recollection sufficiently accounted for my cautious civility in attend- 



