nexplicable doom I
fancied him obliged to go about in an eternal suit of mourning; a
captive--a stately being, let out of the Tower on Saturdays. Often
have I wondered at the temerity of my father, who, in spite of an
habitual general respect which we all in common manifested towards
him, would venture now and then to stand up against him in some
argument, touching their youthful days. The houses of the ancient
city of Lincoln are divided (as most of my readers know) between the
dwellers on the hill, and in the valley. This marked distinction
formed an obvious division between the boys who lived above (however
brought together in a common school) and the boys whose paternal
residence was on the plain; a sufficient cause of hostility in
the code of these young Grotiuses. My father had been a leading
Mountaineer; and would still maintain the general superiority, in
skill and hardihood, of the _Above Boys_ (his own faction) over the
_Below Boys_ (so were they called), of which party his contemporary
had been a chieftain. Many and hot were the skirmishes on this
topic--the only one upon which the old gentleman was ever brought
out--and bad blood bred; even sometimes almost to the recommencement
(so I expected) of actual hostilities. But my father, who scorned to
insist upon advantages, generally contrived to turn the conversation
upon some adroit by-commendation of the old Minster; in the general
preference of which, before all other cathedrals in the island, the
dweller on the hill, and the plain-born, could meet on a conciliating
level, and lay down their less important differences. Once only I saw
the old gentleman really ruffled, and I remembered with anguish the
thought that came over me: "Perhaps he will never come here again."
He had been pressed to take another plate of the viand, which I have
already mentioned as the indispensable concomitant of his visits. He
had refused, with a resistance amounting to rigour--when my aunt,
an old Lincolnian, but who had something of this, in common with
my cousin Bridget, that she would sometimes press civility out of
season--uttered the following memorable application--"Do take another
slice, Mr. Billet, for you do not get pudding every day." The old
gentleman said nothing at the time--but he took occasion in the course
of the evening, when some argument had intervened between them, to
utter with an emphasis which chilled the company, and which chills me
now as I write it--"Woma